Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[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...

[shao32]

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.

i don't considering we say in any moment we should break WAR, his rework is done so there is nothing it can be done on that, his gameplay can be stay and get updated like the rest, but mostly is saying his tool kits should get some number ajustment so the job don't get so invasibe i don't know i you know what i mean.

[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

...

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.
...
...
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.

[Chrono_Rising]

The idea of a life-steal tank as well as a other types, debuff, HP-sink, and shield are all viable ideas. I touch on it specifically in terms of a debuff tank here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-a-Dark-Knight

We need more variety in tanking identities as well as playstyles, And there is plenty of room for more. What I think people worry about, or atleast I worry about, is the statement that the triangle failed but a square might not. The problem was never the triangle, the problem is the triangle was not designed in a rock-paper-scissor type of way. If the square is not designed in a rock-paper-scissor way it will also lead to the exact same issues.

I've seen people make the argument that shake doesn't matter. For Speed runners, it matters, it generates LB and allows people to get multiple DPS LB3's off adding thousands of dps to your pool. For progression and weeklies Shake it off is valuable for surviving mechanics and cutting down healer GCDs. Yes, I have seen the math saying a 5000 shield isn't saving a healer GCD, so I offer you more math:

My 400 ilvl Healer aoe heals for around 10k HP, shake + reprisal is mitigating around 9000 damage on a 40k raid wide (i.e. the equivalent of a aoe medica). On its own own reprisal doesn't save anything, nor does an unbuffed shake, together they pair well and accomplish the goal. Its not about what the abilities can do on their own, its about what else exists in the kit which can be paired. Dark Knight didn't bring anything to compensate for two other tanks being able to bring aoe shields to further buff their reprisal, and for speed runners it isn't ahead enough in dps to make up for LB generation, not to mention that being ahead was only a recent trend which may have reversed with the new BiS gear.

As for Mobility, in a 98% uptime fight sure mobility might not matter too much. But in multiple fights dashes to the boss gains us uptime in various ways. O5S holmgang and plunge can be used to avoid multiple knockbacks and gain more uptime, this was also true of the pushbacks in the entry boss Kefka, Chaos, M/F Omega, and can be used to get us to the boss in multiple other turns which force us away. The funny thing is that for dark knight these plunge uses must be carefully timed because we for some reason have a 5 yalm shorter reach on our dash and have double the cooldown of onslaught. I think the pushback cancellation is an example of something that is good design, Wars have it best, dark knights work for it but can do it frequently enough, and paladin has a hard time with it but can extend it to other players via cover, the problem is that in the grand scheme of things when you map out that triangle in multiple areas, you notice a disparity in the frequency some jobs are in the 1st 2nd and 3rd positions of when something is and is not useful.

In other words, rock is winning in 70% of encounters and often times in multiple areas. To make matters worse if Rock is winning 70% of the time and is your second best move 20% of the time, that leaves little room in other places. The numbers are made up to illustrate the point but you can see why people take issue with this. It might not be what people think of as "god-tier" but it is advantaged and not necessarily apparent if you focus only on one dimension such as "just dps" or "just mitigation".

As I also noted in that post, the problem with the 2.0 conception of warrior was not in the life steal aspect, in order to make life-steal work you need to be able to buff your HP enough to be able to survive attacks, and that is where 2.0 warrior failed. Making vengeance into a 45% HP increase and heal would have solved the majority of the warrior problems. Instead we got a 2nd damage reduction tank which I think was ultimately a detriment to tanking variety. This is a solvable problem, but does take some work in fight design.

Everyone needs a baseline for being able to do certain things related to tanking, but creating a diverse way of handling such things also needs to be a goal. If we have advantages in some areas we need to accept being beaten in others.

[Lyth]

...

I'm not actually in any camp. What I see is a design inertia that the game seems stuck in, and I just want to see a change. I've also been playing for about five years now, so things are starting to feel a bit stagnant.

It's not about who is on top. I was quite fond of DRK's position in Heavensward. It wasn't the strongest tank, but people respected your skill in playing it, especially when you outperformed a more powerful job. I don't want to see DRK as an uncontested raid pick any more than I want to see WAR doing so. I'll argue equally as hard on removing Dark Mind as I will seeing Holmgang's recast increased. But the time has come to change things up.

I'm entirely in favour of seeing IB coming off of stance lock. One of my favourite parts of ARR WAR was the decision to hold IB vs. using it for more dps. I think that the only defensive abilities that tanks actually need for tankbusters are: a 20%/90s CD, a 30%/120s CD, a resource-gated CD, and an invuln on a 5-7 minute recast. When you start adding more cooldowns, tankbuster damage has to increase. This in turn depreciates the value of your weaker cooldowns. I want the focus to be on resource-based mitigation.

Stances
The problem with stances is that the present system entirely favours WAR. The classic argument is that if you make Grit and Shield Oath oGCD, then it's an on-demand Rampart, and these two tanks pull ahead. Fine. But if you keep things as they are, WAR remains the only tank with oGCD stances with no resource cost attached. That, too, is unfair.

That's why I'd rather see the mitigation value of stances removed altogether. Better yet, just remove stances. Then you don't have to worry about being at a disadvantage because Defiance only heals somesuch, and I can use Souleater to eat my opponents without having the effect be gated behind an expensive GCD stance. Nom.

Shields
I think the easiest solution is just to rein in the LB generation from Shields.

The shield resource bar was mentioned in the Las Vegas Fanfest. I think it was Day 2, if memory serves me correctly, and possibly in the "We will positively look into it" Q+A session, although there doesn't seem to be a transcript that I can search through. Other players brought it up independently as well, so I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

Basically, it's a bar to show the amount of shielding that you presently have. On the surface, that sounds like just a UI issue. But it also suggests that all shields are being merged into a common resource. That's a good thing, because at the moment, shields don't really have that much in the way of diminishing returns. They also retain their full value until the buff expires, which is a silly design decision. On some fights, a deploy adlo off a WAR will last you until the next phase change. And we wonder why healers don't really need to heal.

And I say this knowing that it will have an impact on TBN as well. This is a good change, if it places limitations on shield strength.

[Kalise]

-Snip-

I'm still not sold on the idea of "Just remove stances". Since, it works, but only in the sense that if they keep currently balancing so that Tank Stance is not needed then removing stances is fine because it's pointless having them if everyone just sits in DPS stance 24/7.

But then what are you left with... Some vestigial Enmity combo's that MT's don't want to use and OT's can't use for fear of pulling Enmity (See: PLD pre-DPS combos...)

You also inherently dumb down all tank mechanics because you're forced to make decisions such as how to implement Inner Beast in a way where it wouldn't just outperform Fell Cleave and also wouldn't be useless outside IR because lul no resource management.

While making both stances relevant and Stance swapping more fluid in a balanced way you open up far more interesting designs.

For example, Enmity combos can take on the aspects of DPS combos that make them preferred (For example, Savage Blade and Spinning Slash having an MP restore component. Power Slash having HP restore component and Rage of Halone having not trash Potency compared to Royal Authority. Skull Sunder having the slashing debuff on it. Butcher's Block having the HP restore and 20 Beast Gauge) and swapping between Tank Stance and DPS stance changes them into the current DPS combo skills that would function similarly but not have bonus enmity.

Thus, you've just culled 2 buttons from each Tank. By not needing to slot your redundant Enmity combo for basically 1 skill chain on pull or otherwise level Sync'd content... Without actually removing that functionality.

More differences can be implemented too, such as Blood Weapon and Blood Price sharing a button and flipping depending on Grit/no-Grit (Give Blood Price some sort of stat buff too as well, to make it more appealing to use). Making Shield Oath not piping hot garbage for generating Oath compared to Sword Oath.

So much more is available for cutting down on button usage (Allowing for more potential skills to be added) as well as creating interesting effects. Such as maybe MT's will stay in Tank Stance a bit more often to use extra mitigation skills and/or perhaps generate more resources through taking/mitigating damage and then hop into DPS stance for burst phases and then hop back for more mitigation/resource generation (Or even CDR on burst enabling skills like Inner Release/Requiescat/Fight or Flight/Blood Weapon)

But yeah... I think that Stances just offer way more interesting design space than just "Well, no-one uses Tank stance because who needs mitigation when it's only about rotating CD's for TB's, better remove them and stick Inner Beast into WAR's DPS kit somehow". Though, that's just me.

As far as the "Shield Bar". I don't know if it will actually be more than just a visual representation of how much shield you have.

Plenty of games have "Shield Bars" that indicate shielding and still have shield stacking and no decay mechanics.

To say nothing about the fact that Deployed Critlo being bonkers is more a reason to adjust Deployed Critlo rather than nerf all shields in the game.

[Phoenicia]

I'm still not sold on the idea of "Just remove stances". Since, it works...

"It works" doesn't necessarily mean "it's fun" or "it's interactive" if doesn't add anything to game play. Having a PLD in Shield Oath is simply a Gimped PLD with a permanent Rampart. Even if boss damage was relevant enough to force tank stances. High damage boss autos only means less tanks wanting to tank because it hurts DPS, even if it's "necessary DPS loss". Tanks shouldn't be the only ones to take one for the team. I, for one, will just switch to my caster off-role as main again just like I did in HW when the raid-tanking meta shifted in a way I disliked. I know many more will follow suit.

The main problem with stances (and to a lesser extend enmity moves) is that they punish me for doing my job. Or punish me because someone else is not doing their job (i.e. not popping Diveresion).

As long as things stay as they are, stances are only here... to be there. Except maybe Defiance, but then again the penalty. And if that's the reason for them to be here, they need to go.

For "stances" to stay, they need to add something that warrants their existence. It isn't a matter of "taking damage big enough to stay in T-stance" (where we'll just find ways with out CDs) and more of a "Do I go into X stance to use A, or go into Y stance to use B?" They should add interactive play instead of "I press this so I'm MT/OT". I already pressed my job icon to become PLD/DRK/WAR/GUN.

Boss damage is already in a silly state. Tank busters are hitting us for more than twice our health to warrant that a miss-play means a dead tank. Look at Tail End which does 130k damage or Mustard Bomb doing 100k. All of which need the tanks to pop a CD+"on demand" or stack CDs to survive. Instead of going into tank stances, we just found ways to abuse our invulnerables and/or raid mitigation tools (Palisade, Apoc, Addle, Dismantle, Feint, etc.). Compare this with T5 where Death Sentence hit for just under max HP but preceded or followed by a Plummet which a rampart was enough to mitigate and survive.

Good stances in this game are monks and bards. The first uses stances to rush into maximum damage output. The latter cycles the stances as part of their rotation, and it adds choice: AoE use Ballad first, ST use Minuet first, either case, minimize time in Paeon.

Look at monk now, Tornado Kick (TK) removes all Greased Lightning (GL) stacks, and in HW it was a move that just existed to make up for potential DPS loss of dropped GL by converting the drop into potency. But with the new Riddle of- actions (And more importantly the CD reduction on Perfect Balance), monks found a way to convert TK into DPS gain up to twice a minute, via 2 options. Basically, MNKs can use TK in proper burst windows and hop onto FoW to get a bonus quick stack via second Shoulder Tackle, or via Perfect Balance.

Riddle of Earth provides a means to retain GL stacks during down time while reducing damage intake to ease the healing burden.

Let's attempt to suggest something for WAR:

Make Defiance only add health and healing received bonus, gauge and abilities locked to it, but no damage penalty.

Deliverance adds 5%, unlocks relevant gauge and abilities.

Unchained is changed where it can be used in either stance. New effect: breaks from "stance restrictions" (hence the name) where you can get the bonuses and abilities of both stances. This might bloat the buttons a bit as IB and SC will need to be split from FC and Decimate, I know, but it's just a suggestion.

Keeping IB in Defiance would then make sense. To make it a DPS neutral move but still not replace fell cleave, adjust potency to 300 and cost to 30 gauge and/or add a 5s CD. not be a "50 gauge move" that reduces infuriate by 5s (and maybe remove from GCD). This way it can still be "chained" to keep its up-time advantage (lose a bit of healing potential, but that's not needed).

All of the above numbers can be adjusted. Even the mechanics. This was not properly mathed out anyway.

With the above changes, entering defiance for mitigational gains wouldn't feel so bad, heck it might even be made a DPS gain if we capitalize on IB's and Upheaval's being oGCD and the latter's benefiting from beefier max HP.

Easier access to IB means either Holmgang needs a longer CD or Rampart can be dropped off the WAR's toolkit. Or a compromise in between.

Stances shouldn't necessarily be something all 3 tanks have. Sword Oath and Shield Oath don't have ANYTHING locked behind them other than extra damage and heavy penalty. Grit has a bit of interaction with DRK's toolkit, but even that is just clunk, really. This is not to say they shouldn't have stances if something is thought up to warrant them.