Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[shao32]

snip

it's curious you say all of that when we counter any of your arguments then its become not valid bcs it's worthless or just simple don't count for you, you logic is stuning for me.

like it's dosent matter how much impact did have holmgang in the past, "it's have dissadvantages"you say but they din't stop him to roll over exdeath and godka whit his short recast, it's dosent matter for you WAR burst damage create a entire skip mechanic on phantom train, holmgang skip half of the TB leaving a surplus of mitigation tools unused that can be used to feed SIO and being always better that veil but bcs its dosen't have any value for you it dosent count, ,did you heard about "WAR strats" that plage the game since ever?.

you apeal WAR have weaknes but you ignore any argument dismantling those supose weaknes, defiance weaknes, i say WAR have equilibrium to counter that, you ignore it, aoe shields generating Limit break so they are actually usefull for any speed runner and by default desing are pretty usefull for any progesion party and average partys that have more problems to dealt with raid busters, you ignore it.

all i heard is "WAR is weak on mitigation or defiance or whatever" when is not and any argument proving otherwise is ignored or say is not valid, then "yeah WAR is strong in certain areas but can't argue against that bcs is irrelevant for me, just ask to buff you job instead" like really? WAR surpas the other 2 and are the ones that have to ask for buffs? most funny when they do they are argued they shouln't do that, your job is fine or that thing will make it op when its just a small sugestion like removing the grit requeriment of soul eater self-heals.

WAR have a history of being extremly dominant on the tank role during all this 6 years, his kit never end being balanced properly and again and again put WAR in the top and just bcs we all do similar levels of DPS we are supose to call it ok? so what? i gonna expect WAR being dominant on shadowbringers again just bcs the WAR bias don't want to change? well then, when Shadowbringres come and if WAR din't get change and end being the top tank again don't get surprised if we say we say told you, but they can argue that WAR desing int's have the fault like they always do.

[whiskeybravo]

WAR have a history of being extremly dominant on the tank role during all this 6 years, his kit never end being balanced properly and again and again put WAR in the top and just bcs we all do similar levels of DPS we are supose to call it ok? so what? i gonna expect WAR being dominant on shadowbringers again just bcs the WAR bias don't want to change? well then, when Shadowbringres come and if WAR din't get change and end being the top tank again don't get surprised if we say we say told you, but they can argue that WAR desing int's have the fault like they always do.

Because the knee-jerk reaction is to "nerf war" instead of taking the approach of breaking down why, in fact, warrior and paladin are fun to play, strong jobs and popular as a result, and trying to build or improve on that to make DRK better. The post is buried in time, could probably find it with some digging, but it was a blurb from Chrono Rising about how there is a lot of synergy within WARs kit, abilities that feed of and enhance the rest of the abilities. Much like how Ishza mentions how PLDs play off their shields. DRK sort of has a baby step in that direction with TBN/Blood mechanic but for various reasons it's not.. Impressive enough? Or maybe it's just more of a gimmick than a theme at this point.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

The exact proof needed for the point of my previous post. Drivel that is already countered by me and others comes back yet again to the same points, Holmgang, Onlsaught, SiO. Just like I said earlier, a song on repeat. It is apparent a language barrier is also getting in the way between us. I can also see you only raid as DRK, so it is understandable your knowledge on WAR and PLD is limited. Regardless, I'll dissect your post in one last attempt.

like it's dosent matter how much impact did have holmgang in the past, "it's have dissadvantages"you say but they din't stop him to roll over exdeath and godka whit his short recast

Even more proof to what I said: We're back to Holmgang, the circle is complete!!! And is starting a new!

Holmgang requires a target, roots the warrior, and it exists because without it the WAR just doesn't have enough CDs unless they step into Defiance.

Exdeath/Kefka can be done by ANY tank combination. You won't solo tank either fight because you have a WAR, nor will you die because you don't have one. WAR Holmgang is cheese, just like BRD's refresh, RDM's raise, AST's Balance, etc.

it's dosent matter for you WAR burst damage create a entire skip mechanic on phantom train

DRK, RDM, SMN, NIN and BLM can also do that very skip. RDM and NIN do it better as they lose less DPS than a WAR that loses an entire IR window for 2 Fell Cleaves only.

God forbid WAR can cheese the easiest fight 2 tiers ago to gain very slight raid DPS. Let's willfully forget how PLD cheesed entire mechanics/adds that made killing the fights a LOT easier. (Where applicable, DRK can do the same replacing HG with LD).

- In T8: HG to tank boss and add. Holmgang doesn't last long enough.

- In T9: again, HG to tank boss and add, same as above. After meteor phase: Cover highest aggro from Dive in case of tank death or healer aggro during meteor phase.

- T10: Solo soak the charge.

- T11: Solo soak a tank buster, duration from stun to TB is ~6s so Holmgang isn't possible.

- T13: Cover melee so they don't lose up-time to Earthshaker and COMPLETELY skip the puddles ES leaves behind. Also Hallowed 1 of the 2 longest Akh Morns (4th/5th) where Holmgang can't solo except the second one that hits 3 times. Heck, even that "holmgang soak" required a PLD to cover back when cover didn't transfer magic.

- Ravana: Skip the hardest mechanic that 95% of the community can't even handle. WAR wasn't able to do that until 2 patches in with HUGE babysitting from the healers.

- Exdeath: Ignore aggro reset and just cover the WHM.

- O6S: Hallowed the Tornado Stack mechanic to completely ignore it. Impossible for WAR because it is out of range for Holmgang.

- God Kefka: Dark Mind + TBN to take 0 damage from TB and not get bleed.

- O11S: Let healers/DPS handle tether and cover them instead of losing uptime. Saves CDs since you won't have 10k Max HP. Also during Pantokrator 2 you can bait a beam or 2 and still eat the cleaves without dying. Impossible for Holmgang because 6 seconds is not long enough.

- Final Omega: Cover Target Analysis target and take the TB instead of them completely removing the requirement of staying second on threat.

- Every fight with shared TB (Akh Morn/Monitors/etc): Share you own Rampart/Sentinel with Intervention and have the other tank completely save its CDs.

But let's continue arguing how WAR skips 1 mechanic that 4 other jobs can do BETTER.

holmgang skip half of the TB leaving a surplus of mitigation tools unused that can be used to feed SIO and being always better that veil but bcs its dosen't have any value for you it dosent count, ,did you heard about "WAR strats" that plage the game since ever?.

Holmgang again... wow.... Again, the "surplus" of mitigation tools that Holmgang frees up is used to mitigate the other "half of the TB". WAR has to stack CDs to survive them since it doesn't have Shelltron and TBN and Rampart or Vengeance alone won't make you survive a 130k damage TB. So no, WAR will NOT feed anything other than Raw Intuition onto SiO. This was argued before, click on the little arrow box next to my name to see the full post:

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.

Back to SiO, holy s**t dude, for the third time: no it is NOT better than Veil. I'll quote myself:

Shake It Off:
1- Shake it Off shields party with 8/12/16/20% of THEIR OWN HEALTH, not the Warrior's.
2- It eats away CDs for it to be anything above 8% on top of its own CD.
3- At ilv400, DPS average HP is 50k. During prog is MUCH LOWER. Even with VIT melds. At 8%, the barrier blocks ~4k damage.
4- It is oGCD, but does that alone warrant it being the "best shield"?
5- Most Nasty AoE hit for ~40k damage. Healers still have to heal after SiO.

Now let us compare it to Veil:
1- Shields the party with 10% of THE PLD'S HEALTH! Not the party's.
2- Has a 2 minute CD but can be alternated or couple with the stronger party damage reduction ability, of Passage of Arms.
3- At ilv400 (which you shouldn't be), PLD has 80k HP. My PLD wearing the BiS for DPS is at 73055 unbuffed. 78k+ with food and party VIT buff. That's 7.8k shield. The WAR needs to to feed 2 buffs to SiO to block the same amount and has to hop into Defiance to feed it all 4 buffs to finally pass it.
4- Veil itself is oGCD and the barrier won't activate without a heal. But here's the thing, Regen and ANY spell AoE heal activates it. In AoE scenarios healers ALREADY HEAL before AoE. Simply ask the SCH to deploy Adlo off you and with 1 GCD people have Adlo+Veil.
5- Same as SiO. Even a shield of 8K won't save the healers the trouble of healing after AoE.

So how is a 4k shield better than 8k shield? Healers WILL heal before AoE so Veil can be activated automatically.

And about the "WAR strats" that "plage" the game, refer to the point just above your quote. I don't think there's any type of WAR cheese factory and the PLD's cheese is selling more.

all i heard is "WAR is weak on mitigation or defiance or whatever" when is not and any argument proving otherwise is ignored or say is not valid

I think you're coming up with crap out of your bag. I never said WAR is "weak". Check this post, also by me, about WAR's mitigation:

It is actually quite the opposite.

Also check:

DPS and Mitigation post.

WAR have a history of being extremly dominant on the tank role during all this 6 years

No, WAR really doesn't have a history of being extremely dominant.

It had a good couple of years in HW.

It had a bit of a bad time in 4.0 and 4.1.

It had a VERY bad time in 2.0.

Since 4.2. WAR has been in a "good spot". PLD had the best 2 years of its life during Stormblood.

Maybe if you actually played WAR and removed your anti-WAR shades, you'd know. 4.0 nerfed WAR hard and all the buffs until the rework in 4.2 didn't help it much, but you obviously forgot and just want to continue claiming that WAR has been the best tank in MMO history.
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After all of this, and unless you bring a completely convincing case where WAR is ahead of the other two tanks BY ACTUALLY POSTING IMPIRICAL DATA, I will ignore everything you post from now on. If you want to remain a sour lemon into Shadowbringers, that is on you mate.

[Izsha]

Since people love to harp on how wars say war mitigation is 'weak' read the nuanced version that is always ignored.

Wars biggest gaping problem centers around mitigation. Pld drk have frequent on demand cds, wars is stronger but stance locked, but has an extra CD and a low timer immunity to make up for it. It's an awkward compromise where HG and 1 extra CD is used as a crutch for for no on demand action. Which puts war in a very strong (defensively) position in tank stance, but in an awkward spot out of tank stance that uses HG as a crutch to use cds on fluff and layer them for busters.

As long as on demand mitigation (IB) is stance locked and pld/drks isnt, war will have the seesaw problem of to strong in stance and to ok, but awkward out of stance (necessitating holmgang and extra CD as a crutch). Or the alternative, remove those things and have war balanced in stance but weak in deliverance.

I would really like to see IB tone down, unlocked and HG reworked because it is an awkward duct taped together ability. In 2.x it just dragged monster to you and rooted you both. That's it. It was stylish but impractical and awkward. Then in 2.1 war got an immunity and that was the slot that got it. It was never designed for this and is just weird now. But necessary until they free up on demand stance locks.

The problem with war isnt that its mitigation is to strong or to weak. Its that it is binary based on stance and that will never balance well. The same reason weapon type debuffs need to go. You cant balance a job that exists in two states. Lets say you want brd to do 10k dps. Do you make it do 9k and assume a drg ie there? Well now its balanced with drg and UP without. Do you make it do 10k without drg and 11k with? Well now its OP with drg and balanced otherwise. You cant balance a job that lives in 2 states. You cant balance war defense if it has 2 different sets of mitigation based on stance and pld/drk have a single state. That is why war defense is problematic. Not because of HG. Not because of more CDs. Because it has 2 different sets of CDs simultaneously and therefore will never be balanced with drk/pld.

Also:delete weapon type debuffs plz. It's the same binary bs as described with brd just less prominent because the others are self applied (mnk)or have multiple sources (slashing). They are dumb. Delete.

[shao32]

Because the knee-jerk reaction is to "nerf war" instead of taking the approach of breaking down why, in fact, warrior and paladin are fun to play, strong jobs and popular as a result, and trying to build or improve on that to make DRK better. The post is buried in time, could probably find it with some digging, but it was a blurb from Chrono Rising about how there is a lot of synergy within WARs kit, abilities that feed of and enhance the rest of the abilities. Much like how Ishza mentions how PLDs play off their shields. DRK sort of has a baby step in that direction with TBN/Blood mechanic but for various reasons it's not.. Impressive enough? Or maybe it's just more of a gimmick than a theme at this point.

that has been done before, chrono rising feedback and the DRK megathread lyth make after WAR rework to help DRK and i was pretty active on both supporting it fully and there is nothing more to say as you know how SE just literally trow bandfixes to DRK, when WAR was reworked i din't complaing about WAR, i din't care about WAR when was reworked but annoyied with how the devs ignored DRK feedback and his aproach on tank balance, WAR is just a colateral damage of this situation since they are the most benefic with all this situation, in fact despite i belive WAR didnt need the defiance penalitation gone i indeed support they need some help along with DRK, i sometimes play WAR or PLD (despite i dont like the cast bars) just to don't get bored of DRK wich is imposible but you know sometimes you want to play something else.

it's pretty simple, now it's dosent matter anymore since how close we are to the next espansion, but really its a call of all of this don't happen again, nobody says WAR have all the fault but its part of it since every change made to it make him scalate more that intented, you know how strong it is and we are gonna have a 4º tank, tank balance will be more harder and ppl have to realice we can't allowed a job being mandatory and let the other 3 fight with the other spot, with is something WAR have much experience saddly, so i hope you understand is not a rant about you fav job but more a concern the situation you job has been enjoy all this years can't be alowed anymore.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

I agree that WAR on-demand mitigation with IB is more awkward and convoluted than PLD or DRK which are both pretty straightforward, but I wouldn't paint as bleak of a picture as it seems you are.

Yes, IB is stance-locked but WAR also has the most built into their kit to easily transition between stances with them being ogcd and having no resource cost. There is the 10s recast so you can't pop into Defiance, IB and pop back to Deliverance immediately but with Unchained you can negate most of the negative effect of being in Defiance, losing out on only the 5% dps boost from Deliverance and not being able to FC within that time.

Then there is the question of how important or needed on-demand mitigation is in this game. I would argue not much due to how scripted and planned for all relevant incoming damage is and how low impact the fluff damage is. Honestly where I see the on-demand mitigation of Sheltron and TBN being used most is to supplement fluff damage soaking and for stacking with other defensive CDs to take a TB. So really the "on-demand" part means very little and they really act as more "supplemental" mitigation to fill in gaps and bolster other abilities. The fact that they are available so frequently is in a way necessary for them to layered in here and there as they should be.

So then that leads into how these easily available "supplemental" mitigation abilities and the rest of the defensive kits of PLD and DRK relate to WAR's kit.
Holmgang has a much shorter recast compared to other defensive "ultimates" and so can be used to handle more TBs which then frees up more of the defensive CDs to be used for fluff damage.
That is actually not to dissimilar to the end result of the defensive CD kits of PLD and DRK that have to be more spread out and split to handle TBs and fluff damage, relying on proper TBN/Sheltron usage to stack up with lesser defensives to create greater defense overall for TBs instead of relying on a more available "ultimate" for them, and for gap filling defense during fluff damage since more of their CDs had to be used for TBs.
So if we focus on boss fights, completely ignore IB as part of WAR's kit and relegate the tanks to not being in tank stance, then they actually have a semblance of equability.

The main point of contention against WAR and particularly Holmgang is that because it is an "ultimate" and straight up prevents death as opposed to % mitigation and/or damage shields, it is able to sometimes cheese very specific scenarios because the stacked regular defensives have a damage limit that if surpassed results in death while Holmgang doesn't.
However I would say these situations tend to be more the exception rather than the norm, so it then brings into question whether the problem is necessarily the fault of the job/ability design or the content design. I personally lean more towards it being the latter but I see where people are coming from when arguing the former.

Then there is the situation of if the defensive CD kits balance out under the scenario lined out above, then what happens to that balance when you throw in the availability of IB into the mix. Yes it is not something that players will want to use when "playing optimally" and things are going as desired, but it is an additional safety net that can help when things go sideways or you are really pushing into the unknown like in prog. So that is something that WAR has, even if reluctantly, that differs from DRK and PLD. I will add in the caveat that the flexibility of TBN and Sheltron does overlap somewhat with this and does provide a bit of a similar safety net, but since those abilities are also part of the basic defensive strategy of DRK and PLD there are questions around how much they can be relied upon as an additional safety net without negatively effecting base defenses as opposed to the more "in addition to" sort of safety net that IB can provide.

So I don't feel that it is really accurate to say that WAR is lacking in mitigation compared to PLD and DRK because of IB being stance-locked and at the same time I feel that some of the rhetoric on how overpowered WAR's defensives are because of Holmgang can often be a bit overblown.

If I had to point to any one thing that I feel comfortable saying is ridiculous and op in regards to WAR's defense, it would be IR+Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone spam. I mean you will rarely ever use IR+IB spam and only in dungeon mass pulls for IR+Cyclone, but when you do use them it is crazy. Seems like a pretty nasty design oversight imo.

I would really like to see IB tone down, unlocked and HG reworked because it is an awkward duct taped together ability. In 2.x it just dragged monster to you and rooted you both. That's it. It was stylish but impractical and awkward. Then in 2.1 war got an immunity and that was the slot that got it. It was never designed for this and is just weird now. But necessary until they free up on demand stance locks.

Yeah, Holmgang was definitely originally designed as more of a thematic ability, I mean just look at the name, that then got invulnerability shoe-horned into it. I'm not totally down on what it has become but I would shed no tears if the whole pull, root and needing a target bits went away, it got renamed and it kept just the invulnerability part.

As far as making IB not stance-locked and reworking HG, that could work but there would be a few considerations that would have to be dealt with.
First being the recast time of HG and how the greater availability of IB to supplement defense would affect the overall state of WAR's defensive situation. Likely HG would need to have a longer recast time to compensate and potentially the recast times of other defensive CDs would need to be looked at.
Second is that FC and IB would then both be available in Deliverance and would be competing for gauge resources, leaving using IB over FC as still being a dps loss which leaves it as still being something to be avoided instead of something to be layered in like TBN and Sheltron. So it removes the whole stance hurdle but still leaves it a dps loss to really take advantage of its availability. PLD avoids this issue since both of it's gauge abilities are defensive in nature so there is no defense vs. offense trade-off and DRK avoids this because it utilizes two separate resources and proper TBN usage results in a resource switch-off which helps keep it's frequent use closer to dps neutral. If IB were to be stance,-independent, something would have to be figured out so that it can work around this inherent problem of IB and FC sharing a resource.

Also: Delete weapon type debuffs plz. It's the same binary bs as described with brd just less prominent because the others are self applied (mnk)or have multiple sources (slashing). They are dumb. Delete.

Agreed. They just seem like something that was added in at some point to have a semblance of variety, never done anything with and then just left to fester.

And if the target got behind you because of how great this game's spaghetti code is, you couldn't even turn around to attack it.

That is not a "spaghetti code" issue, it is purely a design mistake. If the root effect locks an actor in place, restricting movement including directional movement to turn around and then a designer decides to apply that affect as part of an ability but overlooks that it may lock them facing away from each other and therefore unable to attack, that is on the designer and honestly should have been caught in either self-testing that all designers and developers should do or in qa. Even if the designer scripted the effect themselves, that is still a design mistake and not a "code" mistake and especially has nothing to do with the issues implied by the term "spaghetti code", being that the code is so unorganized that it results in breakages and bugs.

[Phoenicia]

....HG reworked because it is an awkward duct taped together ability. In 2.x it just dragged monster to you and rooted you both.

Holmgang didn't even have the pull mechanic, only rooted both. lol. And if the target got behind you because of how great this game's spaghetti code is, you couldn't even turn around to attack it. (Which could also work FOR you if you got behind he mob as you press Holm).

Good job on the rest.

[Izsha]

, so i hope you understand is not a rant about you fav job but more a concern the situation you job has been enjoy all this years can't be alowed anymore.

I fully understand the concern to have balanced jobs after big reworks like the expansions. But what you have to realize is that it is MUCH easier to have jobs with unique and interesting playstyles and cohesive kits. Make the jobs engaging, unique and fun. Test them to be in the same ball park numerically. Then make minor tweaks to the numbers after release.

Think about pld in Stormblood. It got reworked into a nice job that really 'feels' like a paladin. Shield stufff everywhere, using physical swordsmanship and holy magic to smite your foes. Protecting your allies with protective holy magic and your own shield. Very well designed. But overturned. So they just nerfed the potency of holy spirit a bunch, tweaked the enmity on this, the potency on that, etc.

Compare that with drk. It came in underfunded and they slowly buffed up its potency many times, reduced cooldown times, extended tbn duration, added some enmity, buffed magic CD etc. They mostly buffed numbers but the job design wasnt aa good and cohesive as plds from the start.

Both jobs just got number tweaks but the core kit remained unchanged. Even war who had some work done is fundamentally the same class though it got a more dramatic changes.

The point is, the call to action shouldn't be tearing war down. It should be pushing for 4 well designed tanks with cohesive kits because the only thing we can guarantee is they will tweak some numbers post release to make the power levels fall in line. But they probably wont kake big redesigns. So demanding warrior loses this niche or that gameplay aspect is the opposite of what the playerbase actually deserves. 4 fun interesting, well designed tanks. You can always dramatically shift balance around with numbers. You cant redesign a broken tank from the ground up mid season. No class deserves to be without identity, not warrior, drk, pld or gun. Tearing down warrior doesnt make drks design better. You just make 2 poorly designed jobs instead of 1.

[Izsha]

@touch and feel
I didnt mean to paint some dire scene for warrior, just that the neverending debate on wars mitigation is traced back to IB stance lock. The most common complaint (as you noted) is HG. But as long as IB is behind stance we have the need to have addition cds and shorter CD like the low recast on HG to lean on. Other tanks lean on their on demand action to double up their limited cds. War uses its extra immunities to double up its CDs. But then you pop into defiance and are an indestructable wall (though not optimal). That dynamic will always remain and be the cause of much ire and the only way out is to free IB so war doesnt have this dual state of 2 defensive sets based on stance. It's not a death sentence to warrior but it will forever be a thorn in warriors balance unless removed. We cant fo anything about HG until we do something about IB.

On the IR defensive spam I wholeheartedly agree. Yet another reason I hate Xeno for stirring up this 'mah zerk FC didnt crit' QQ train that destroyed an extremely well designed and rewarding class into the 5fc drivel it is now.

Speaking of how perception doesnt mean jack squat yo balance. It's not just the underdogs that suffer blind groupthink. Still salty about the ir change.

[TouchandFeel]

@touch and feel

Cool, cool. Seem like we are generally on the same page in regards to how the defensive CD kits somewhat equal out when comparing PLD/DRK against WAR if IB is taken out of the equation by staying out of tank stance.

I actually updated my above post on some of the considerations that would need to be tackled if IB were to have the stance restriction removed. The main one that I see as being problematic is the sharing of resources between IB and FC and the fact that it then leaves WAR in the unfortunate position of still having to sacrifice dps for utilizing their "on-demand/supplemental" defensive while PLD and DRK pretty much avoid that situation with theirs.

As for groupthink, yeah it pretty unanimously sucks and is a lot like the drunk guy at the party. Sure they may seem fun and may get people hyped up, but don't be surprised when the next morning you find that they threw up all over your bathroom.

People can agree with each other and a larger group, or disagree, but they really need to think for themselves while coming to those conclusions.