Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[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.

[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.

[Kalise]

-Snip-

I still feel that IR is horrible design. Both in terms of how it ends up dominating so much of WAR's DPS leaving the rest of their skills feeling like you're slapping enemies with wet noodles hoping for crits to have an impact when used with FC but also because of the IB/SC spam that is just nuts (If a little hilarious at times)

At the end of the day in terms of tank mitigation... I feel they really need to make Tank stances necessary for MT's with DPS stance being there for OT's (In the context of not currently needing to tank say an add or whatever) or for particular mechanics where damage isn't coming in onto the MT for long enough to be worth swapping over to push more damage.

Since it would be a lot easier to balance out mitigation if there wasn't just this accepted design where basically no-one uses Tank stance outside when poop hits the fan.

Given that it seems like WAR (Well, Tanks in general) are getting balanced around being able to do everything they need defensively, in DPS Stance. Thus, any notion of a defensive tool tied to Tank stance (Such as IB) often ends up pushing things too far.

Not to mention, the inherent gameplay pitfalls, such as how incredibly lame it is for optimal performance being to... Completely disregard Tank Stances while Tanking and rarely if ever, try to dance between stances, even if your class has some ways to facilitate that (Such as Unchained)

It would also give them more opportunity to prevent Tank damage from getting "Too high" as they oft say, without having to implement stupid decisions like making Tank Accessories total garbage so everyone just uses Penta-Meld Crafted ones...

[whiskeybravo]

I still feel that IR is horrible design. Both in terms of how it ends up dominating so much of WAR's DPS leaving the rest of their skills feeling like you're slapping enemies with wet noodles hoping for crits to have an impact when used with FC but also because of the IB/SC spam that is just nuts (If a little hilarious at times)

At the end of the day in terms of tank mitigation... I feel they really need to make Tank stances necessary for MT's with DPS stance being there for OT's (In the context of not currently needing to tank say an add or whatever) or for particular mechanics where damage isn't coming in onto the MT for long enough to be worth swapping over to push more damage.

Since it would be a lot easier to balance out mitigation if there wasn't just this accepted design where basically no-one uses Tank stance outside when poop hits the fan.

Given that it seems like WAR (Well, Tanks in general) are getting balanced around being able to do everything they need defensively, in DPS Stance. Thus, any notion of a defensive tool tied to Tank stance (Such as IB) often ends up pushing things too far.

Not to mention, the inherent gameplay pitfalls, such as how incredibly lame it is for optimal performance being to... Completely disregard Tank Stances while Tanking and rarely if ever, try to dance between stances, even if your class has some ways to facilitate that (Such as Unchained)

It would also give them more opportunity to prevent Tank damage from getting "Too high" as they oft say, without having to implement stupid decisions like making Tank Accessories total garbage so everyone just uses Penta-Meld Crafted ones...

I did slightly prefer the previous IR to the current one, at least there was some interesting planning/prep involved for execution. There are some benefits to having such an important burst window, like being able deal with a mechanic with minimal dps loss. Unless, of course, said mechanic comes up during the burst window in which case you are completely gimped for the next 90 seconds. So I think in this regard it's more balanced than not.

While I find myself somewhat partial to the arguments for removing tank stances, I'd rather them keep the stances (obviously make them more fluid and less punishing) instead of forcing MT and OT style jobs - simply because we know the community will try to find a way to make 2 OT meta.

[Kalise]

I did slightly prefer the previous IR to the current one, at least there was some interesting planning/prep involved for execution. There are some benefits to having such an important burst window, like being able deal with a mechanic with minimal dps loss. Unless, of course, said mechanic comes up during the burst window in which case you are completely gimped for the next 90 seconds. So I think in this regard it's more balanced than not.

While I find myself somewhat partial to the arguments for removing tank stances, I'd rather them keep the stances (obviously make them more fluid and less punishing) instead of forcing MT and OT style jobs - simply because we know the community will try to find a way to make 2 OT meta.

Balance aside, IR's functionality is not particularly fun or engaging. Press IR > Mash FC (Weave in an Upheaval and maybe an Onslaught because why not they cost nothing because lul IR). PLD has it similar with Requiescat, but even then they also have a second "Burst" phase with FoF which is more diverse too (Especially if you capitalize on getting 2 Goring Blades during FoF)

IR negates your job gauge, by disregarding the resources as well as making the crit chance boost from the gauge irrelevant. It renders 2 stats (Thus, all other CD's that might be used in a burst phase that boost those stats *Cough*Battle Litany*Cough*Chain Stratagem*Cough*Battle Voice*Cough*) obsolete for its duration and it has a really boring "Rotation" to capitalize on it. For something that deals almost half your total damage during each 90s window (I.e. 10s of IR = ~80s of non-IR)

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like WAR being focused around burst damage. In fact, Berserk was one of the factors that kept me playing WAR instead of changing to DRK (Given I have a history of playing the "Dark Knight" tanks in games. From Shadow Knight in EQII to Deathknight in WoW, Chosen in Warhammer Online, Dark Knight in Black Desert Online). It's just, IR takes the burst to the extreme at the cost of disregarding pretty much anything interesting. Like there isn't even anything in their kit that gets benefit from them critting (Despite their focus on crits...) at best there's just Infuriate CDR from using FC/IB/SC/Deci (So you can have more Gauge to not care about during IR! -.-)

That aside out of the way...

I really do hope they don't make "MT" and "OT" Tanks designed for only one role... Would not only likely lead to a meta that cheeses things (I.e. 2 MT's or 2 OT's depending on what comp is the cheesiest), but also be kind of annoying to wait several years to get a 4th tank to only then get slapped back down to 2 tanks if you're a specific role in your statics (Or have a preference in role)... Really hope they end up making all Tanks able to be either MT or OT.

[Lyth]

Mitigation
With regards to mitigation, IB is a bit of a red herring. WAR doesn't actually need IB to clear content. If you did, you'd see WARs preferring OT roles. Between the short recasts on Vengeance and Holmgang, as well as WAR's auxillary cooldowns, you're never in a situation in which you're forced to use it.

The other issue with IB is that 20% generally isn't enough to mitigate a tankbuster. This is partially because of how many defensive cooldowns and invulns are available on any given pair of tanks. So if you want IB to become something that is actually usable, you'd need to see a number of changes.

First, you'd need to see a reduction in the number of available cooldowns. This means getting rid of some of the more frequent ones and making invulns less readily available. I've talked about this already. Second, you'd need to see more of an emphasis on intermediate damage "cleaves" that need to be actively mitigated with something like Sheltron/IB/TBN. Not necessarily the sort of damage that can one shot you if you mistime it, but the sort of thing that would make both you and your healer sweat a bit if you aren't paying attention.

If you did this, IB could become stance independent (and ideally oGCD). Making it dps neutral wouldn't be too difficult. The problem is going to be that if it's oGCD, it'll just end up being used for dps under IR. If it's GCD and dps neutral, then it'll just replace Fell Cleave. Ultimately, I think that this is something that is going to end up being timer gated rather than resource gated.

Thematically, I would like to see some of WAR's mitigation potential linked with their rages, as it was in Heavensward. There's that standard barbarian trope where you ignore pain while going berserk.

Lifesteal

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?)

Lifesteal doesn't need to be the focal point of any tank, but it's certainly a waste not to. It makes for really fun gameplay.

The problem at the moment is that it gets treated like having a gap closer or a party-wide shield. Oh, I need a bit of lifesteal on the side. But it's a half-hearted effort. And if you're looking for a proper lifesteal tank, you have to go to other games to get it.

There's a few reasons why DRK is a good choice for this mechanically. The first reason is that resource stealing is already a core part of DRK. You hit things, and green numbers appear. You use blood weapon, and lots of green numbers appear.

Speed is another reason. One of the ways in which DRK presently differentiates itself from the other tanks is in how fast we attack. This might change in Shadowbringers depending on how Gunbreaker plays (as I would ordinarily expect them to be a fast hitting job, as per FF8 lore), but we'll see.

So where a job like WAR is about hitting really, really hard and giving you the biggest number possible, DRK is about filling the screen with little numbers as you hit multiple times (the Omnislash aesthetic). And when you throw lifesteal into the mix, that becomes a lot of little green numbers.

There's a balance reason here too. Because DRK is more about sustained dps than it is about burst, HP generation from lifesteal is much more predictable. So you don't have to worry about a player suddenly generating the equivalent of Benediction just because they entered their burst phase. The point of lifesteal isn't to replace the healer. It's just there to offset some of the work.

I think the real question to ask is: how do you construct a lifesteal tank, as a core concept? I think the answer to that, in part, is going to rely on the changes to player shields next expansion. But I'm going to defer this for the time being.

Trade-offs

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Being exceptional in one area doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be terrible at everything else. But you shouldn't be good at everything else, either.

Using PLD as an example, we all know that they have some pretty neat tricks up their gauntlets when it comes to support abilities. They're also not bad offensively, either. But when Stormblood launched, they actually had an advantage at both. They were the highest dps tank (by roughly the same margins that WAR is now), as well as having these support advantages.

There were riots. People complained endlessly about how unfair it was to WAR. And when WAR regained the dps advantage (again, by the same margins PLD had previously): Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

It was never about the utility.

Again, I think it's okay to have things that you excel in. But everyone should have a similar sized niche. To add to that, if you add in new jobs (as will invariably be the case), you also need to leave some room for them. So even if these "niches" end up being balanced for Shadowbringers, there's always a possibility that we may have to give some things up in the future if they're too broad. That's why I think it's better to pick a focus and zero in on it.

The other thing is, we need to stop looking at things in terms of "Where's my X?" Just because an ability exists, doesn't mean that you are automatically entitled to having it on your job. It might make life a bit easier, but if it's not essential, it's part of that job's flavour. And it's reciprocal.

Miscellaneous
The real power of Shake and Veil doesn't actually come from their mitigation value. That's a benefit, of course (and you can boost Shake so that it becomes pretty powerful if you need to, from a progression standpoint). But the value comes from their LB generation, which effectively makes them a raid-wide dps boost. The recast on Shake makes it better.

That being said, the discussion about a new "shield resource bar" leaves me hopeful that we're going to see some changes to the way shielding works in this game. If they are registered as a resource rather than as buffs, I'd expect to see them decay over time and have an upper cap. I'll be interested to see how it plays out.

[Phoenicia]

With regards to mitigation, IB is a bit of a red herring.
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Miscellaneous
The real power of Shake and Veil doesn't actually come from their mitigation value. That's a benefit, of course (and you can boost Shake so that it becomes pretty powerful if you need to, from a progression standpoint). But the value comes from their LB generation, which effectively makes them a raid-wide dps boost. The recast on Shake makes it better.

That being said, the discussion about a new "shield resource bar" leaves me hopeful that we're going to see some changes to the way shielding works in this game. If they are registered as a resource rather than as buffs, I'd expect to see them decay over time and have an upper cap. I'll be interested to see how it plays out.

I'm a bit confused on which camp you're on atm lol.

The point when it was mentioned for balance, in ARR and HW WAR's toolkit was balanced around "not needing" Rampart, and now it is balanced around inability access IB in Deliverance. So yes, they do not need it as long as things stay as they are.

As long as WAR can't access their "on-demand" ability to layer on top of 1 CD (like how DRK and PLD can), WAR needs a crutch to lean on with Holmgang's short CD to free up CDs for it to stack. But if you DO want to change Holmgang's CD, you need to allow IBs outside of Defiance.

It is similar to how Shield Oath and Grit shouldn't be removed from the GCD until Deliverance gets to heal current health by 25% (and switching to deliverance makesyou lose 25% current health as well). Then all stances will affect health the same way and then they either be all on the GCD or all off it.

As for life stealing:The concept has various ways to work. But it is quite hard to balance so they don't end up either so strong they out-heal the healers ending up not needing them, or too weak with a yo-yo health bar they only cause healers to panic. This is where 2.0's version of WAR struggled. 2.0 WAR soloed dungeon bosses (there were videos on youtube) and outright died when they weren't at a certain gear threshold against other bosses (Titan HM, Twintania).

Discussing a workable life stealing tank is a very interesting topic and should it be wished for, we can have a thread for it maybe? As you mentioned, other games do have working Life-stealing tanks (some are border line OP while others are useless) that we can use for reference.

The LB generation value is a newly discovered way to cheese/speed run content. They are a side of effect and are still doable without PLD+WAR. But it DOES make them a preferred choice. DRK+WAR have LB generation advantage over PLD with Holmgang and LD allowing healers to get the "heal-save" bonus.

Mind telling me where this discussion about the shield resource bar is? Is it official stuff? Thanks in advance.

[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.