Warrior Rework Idea

[Kalise]

Edit: 1st April Update:

Changed some existing skills and mechanics. Added new level 70-80 skills.


So, due to playing some more Eureka, I've had some time during this engaging and fun content content to think about ShB and job overhauls/reworks. Today I would like to share what I've got so far for the job Warrior:

Role Actions:

Not exclusive to WAR, but I envision a change to Role Actions which I'll highlight here.

Rampart - Has now been turned into job specific variants that provide a similar effect. For WAR, it is now Thrill of Battle for 20% max + current health. Still retaining 20s duration and using Rampart's 90s CD.

Low Blow - Removed

Provoke - Removed. Instead the effect has now been folded into the Tanks ranged skills Tomahawk, Shield Lob and Unmend. These skills are now oGCD, have only 50 potency and cost 20% max MP. In addition, these skills have their range increased to 25y up from 15y.

Convalescence - Removed. Tanks now gain access to a self sustain cooldown in its stead.

Anticipation - Tanks now get a high level trait to upgrade Anticipation into a unique job specific variant. For example, WAR traits into Raw Intuition and PLD traits into Bulwark.

Reprisal - Cooldown reduced to 45s down from 60s

Awareness - Removed.

Interject - Now causes 1s Disable effect. Preventing the use of Spells or Actions. Does not suffer from Diminishing Returns. Effectively, it becomes an interrupt that works on all interruptible enemy actions (I.e. Ones that can be Stunned/Silenced). Cooldown reduced to 15s down from 30s.

Ultimatum - Can now be cast while targeting an ally to affect the area around them.

Shirk - Unchanged.

Leveling:

New skills highlighted in bold.

1 - Heavy Swing
4 - Skull Sunder
6 - Berserk
8 - Thrill of Battle
10 - Overpower
12 - Interject
14 - Butcher's Block
15 - Tomahawk
16 - Crushing Strike
18 - Maim
20 - Mighty Cleave
22 - Ground Shaker
24 - Anticipation
26 - Bloodbath
28 - Storm's Path
30 - Mercy Stroke
30 - Defiance
32 - Reprisal
34 - Smash
35 - Inner Beast
36 - Fracture
38 - Storm's Eye
40 - Unchained
42 - Holmgang
44 - Ultimatum
45 - Steel Cyclone
46 - Vengeance
48 - Shirk
50 - Smite of Rage
50 - Furious Guard
52 - Deliverance
54 - Fell Cleave
56 - Raw Intuition
58 - Equilibrium
60 - Decimate
62 - Onslaught
64 - Upheaval
66 - Fractured Earth
68 - Warcry
70 - Inner Release
72 - Furore
74 - Deep Wounds
76 - Inner Calm
78 - Magic Counter
80 - Tectonic Fissure

Skill Updates and Changes

Here is where I will cover all of the changes to existing skills as well as detail new skills.

Defiance, Deliverance, Beast Gauge and Spenders:

The largest overhaul is to do with the job gauge mechanic as a whole as well as stances.

In this idea, WAR no longer has stances at all. But instead uses a dual Gauge system.

Upon learning Defiance at level 30 with the Warrior job, you gain access to the Defiance gauge. This is filled up by using certain actions.

Filling Defiance gauge grants passive increases to parry chance, up to a maximum of 10%.

Defiance gauge can be spent on using Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone and Furious Guard.

Similarly, upon learning Deliverance at level 52 you gain access to the Deliverance gauge. This is filled up by using certain actions.

Filling Deliverance gauge grants passive increases to critical strike chance, up to a maximum of 10%.

Deliverance gauge can be spent on using Fell Cleave, Decimate and Upheaval.

Aesthetically, the two gauges will sit one on top of the other inside the Beast Gauge UI element. With Defiance being the current yellow/orange colour and Deliverance being a blue colour.

On player models, upon reaching 50 Defiance, the current orange graphics appear on your character. Upon reaching 50 Deliverance, a new blue coloured graphic will appear (I'm thinking something like swirling blue flames - Akin to the ones used at the end of the current Deliverance animation after the orbs have entered your body, just blue coloured)

Now, going through the list of changed/new skills by level:

Heavy Swing - Generates 5 Defiance.

Skull Sunder - Can no longer be put onto action bars. Instead, Heavy Swing automatically transitions into it as you progress the combo. Generates 10 Defiance. Additionally, restores MP.

Butcher's Block - Can no longer be put onto action bars. Instead, Heavy Swing automatically transitions into it as you progress the combo. Generates 10 Defiance. Additionally, grants a buff reducing damage taken by 10% for 30 seconds.

Thrill of Battle - Cooldown reduced to 90s down from 120s.

Crushing Strike - A new skill. Functionally identical to Heavy Swing in terms of potency. Generates 5 Deliverance.

Maim - Generates 10 Deliverance. Cannot be placed on an action bar. Instead Crushing Strike transitions into it.

Mighty Cleave + Ground Shaker - Cannot be placed on an action bar. Instead, Overpower transitions into them. Mighty Cleave is a 180 degree cone (Semi-circle in front of you) and Ground Shaker is a PBAoE strike.

Storm's Path - Generates 10 Deliverance. Cannot be placed on an action bar. Instead Crushing Strike transitions into it. Heals for 50% of the damage it deals. Now also applies a buff increasing damage by 10% for 30s (Instead of Storm's Eye)

Mercy Stroke - 15s CD skill that deals bonus damage to targets below 50% life. Deals double bonus damage to targets below 20% life. Heals for 20% max life on a killing blow. Costs 20% MP

Smash - Functionally identical to Crushing Strike.

Inner Beast + Steel Cyclone - Heals for 100% damage dealt and applies the buff "Defiant" increasing max health by 10% for 30s. Costs 50 Defiance.

Fracture - Cannot be placed on an action bar. Instead Smash transitions into it. Leaves a DoT effect lasting 15s on the target.

Storm's Eye - Cannot be placed on an action bar. Instead Smash transitions into it. Now grants a buff increasing Critical Strike Chance by 5% for 30s

Unchained - Now increases the enmity generation of all actions for the duration.

Smite of Rage - 30s CD skill that deals high damage and is always a Direct Critical Hit. Costs 20% MP

Furious Guard - Causes the next attack against you to deal 20% less damage before mitigation. After which you perform a counter attack dealing damage equal to the damage prevented up to a maximum potential damage of X potency (Increased by max health increase effects). oGCD with 15s reuse. Costs 25 Defiance.

Fell Cleave + Decimate - Costs 50 Deliverance.

Raw Intuition - 100% parry chance on attacks from the front. 30% increased parry chance on attacks from other angles. No longer forces critical hits.

Equilibrium - Now always heals and restores 20% MP.

Onslaught - Cooldown increased to 30s. Potency reduced to 50. Now costs 20% max MP

Upheaval - Now costs 25 Deliverance (Potency adjusted accordingly)

Fractured Earth - Trait - Causes Ground Shaker to refresh the duration of Fracture on targets it hits and also spread any existing Fracture effects to targets hit.

Warcry - Replaces Shake It Off. Now is a 120s CD skill that causes self and all party members damage and healing skills to hit for maximum values for 20s

Inner Release - Now increases Gauge generation from skills by 100% instead of making gauge spenders free.

Furore - 30s CD skill that deals high damage to targets in an area around you and stuns them. Costs 20% MP.

Deep Wounds - Trait - Increases the duration of Fracture to 30s and causes Critical Hits of its DoT effect to generate 5 Defiance and 5 Deliverance.

Inner Calm - Provides a Heal over Time effect that is empowered by consuming CD buffs (Thrill of Battle, Vengeance, Inner Beast)

Magic Counter - Trait - Allows the parrying of spells.

Tectonic Fissure - Deals massive damage in a line before you. Dealing X potency to the first target, 10% less for the second, 20% less for the third, 30% less for the fourth, 40% less for the fifth, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.


Combat:

These changes serve to make combat focus around leveraging your 4 combos and gauge skills. Each combo only requires 1 button to transition between all 3 skills (Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block. Crushing Strike > Maim > Storm's Path. Smash > Fracture > Storm's Eye. Overpower > Mighty Cleave > Ground Shaker). Each combo also provides some additional effects that you want to maintain or situationally use.

After each combo, you generate 25 of a gauge, which is half the necessary amount to use a spender (Or in the case of Upheaval/Furious Guard, the exact amount) allowing you to rotate their usage between normal combos. During Inner Release, you generate enough gauge to use a full spender each rotation. In addition, after getting Deep Wounds, your Fracture DoT will be able to generate some Gauge.

In addition, you now have 4 additional non-combo skills (Mercy Stroke, Smite of Rage, Furore and Tectonic Fissure) to use when they're available and can ideally save them for during CD burst phases.

Warcry provides some unique utility to WAR, allowing them to remove the damage/healing variance of skills temporarily slightly increasing the parties output.

Without a stance to provide passive Enmity boost, WAR instead relies upon Unchained to allow them to temporarily amp their enmity generation, allowing for them to pull or to generate spike enmity without losing DPS. With the downside that it's not always readily available.

[Izsha]

Few things:
Provoke tied to ANY potency backfires. People will want to use for potency and there arent any competing uses for MP which brings me to:

I think you overlooked the MP resource. You have lots of ways to gain it. equilibrium(20%), Skull Sunder+Butchers (unspecified). Passive accumulation, (potentially any jobs party buffs like goad now) But only 1 spender that costs 20%, onslaught on a 30 sec CD and a 50 potency provoke (20 sec CD). I'm not seeing much point in MP on war when its only active use is onslaught and screwing up everything with provoke spam for damage.

Assuming you dont spam voke and just use onslaught (2/min), equal covers 1. Passive regen probably covers the other. People will ignore butchers 100% of the time the same way we avoid defiance for more fell cleaves. Except now we get defiance for just being smacked and can use both IB and FC simultaniously. Without the enmity on butchers, theres really no reason for it to exist as it would never be used without some seriously good things to do with MP that outweigh another FC. Wars will learn to get by using only the free IBs provided by taking damage and just spam eye/path for FC forever.

If anything this looks to be reinforcing the current play style of spam FC but now you get the bonus of tank stance, IB, and even more max HP from passive IB/SC gains from taking damage which results in a damage gain while tanking. Not sure if this was the goal, or if this is to design war as one of the 'MTs' in a MT/OT split role world.

Without any reason to use BB combo except to sacrifice damage for more defense (we know how that goes), Theres really no difference between tanking and not except you get occasional free IBs to use. It sounds like a have your cake and eat it too version of the current stance system, which, while effective, doesnt sound very appealing to me personally.

[Raldo]

Low Blow - Removed

Please don't take away our one and only stun

[Kalise]

Provoke tied to ANY potency backfires. People will want to use for potency and there arent any competing uses for MP which brings me to:

True. I was thinking about this while designing it. It's a tricky one, since, yes, of course, it being tied to potency and being oGCD means it gets spammed on CD.

Outside of course, the fact that PROVOKE doing that means you'd be constantly tank swapping and so fudge up mechanics a bunch...

I'm not completely bound by the idea of it having potency, I merely included it so as to have a bit of extra actual enmity itself so that long distance Provokes to say, pick up an add that's barrelling down to a healer actually does something (Other than turn it around for half a second before the next Regen tick rips threat back off you).

I think you overlooked the MP resource.

This is mostly intentional. Due to not knowing how SE are planning on overhauling the physical classes that never use MP with their removal of TP.

It may be that all skills cost MP, it may be that only AoE's cost MP (Simulating the current scenario where outside of specific high SkS builds, only AoE rotations actually use up TP faster than regen)

I mean, I could also make skills such as Mercy Stroke and Smite of Rage also cost considerable MP too.

Without the enmity on butchers, theres really no reason for it to exist as it would never be used without some seriously good things to do with MP that outweigh another FC. Wars will learn to get by using only the free IBs provided by taking damage and just spam eye/path for FC forever.

True. Again, this is predicated on making adjustments to MP costs after seeing the direction SE are going with their TP removal.

Ideally, having Butchers as an MP gain would need to make sense. But without then causing a scenario such as creating a PLD/DRK playstyle where only the MP gain matters...

Though, I think it might just be that I need to go back to the drawing board and redesign Butcher's combo secondary effects.

The issue is what... I dabbled with the idea of having another HP gain, but it felt unnecessary with Defiance and new IB... More damage buffs are ehh... Raw potency would be difficult to balance out with FC access...

That said, I do want to keep Defiance build up on that combo, so that OT WAR's can still maintain their IB and Defiance stacks. With there being a slight DPS gain to being actively tanking (Through the passive Defiance build up)

If anything this looks to be reinforcing the current play style of spam FC but now you get the bonus of tank stance, IB, and even more max HP from passive IB/SC gains from taking damage which results in a damage gain while tanking. Not sure if this was the goal, or if this is to design war as one of the 'MTs' in a MT/OT split role world.

Well, it deviates from the FC spam of current, by making IB actually usable and not a DPS loss to access it (While making it defensively less swingy). With the general theme that instead of just having a 1 button wonder skill to give 20% EHP like Sheltron/TBN instead WAR just has a higher health pool continuously (At the cost of needing it to be replenished to have an effect)

In addition, there's less reliance on IR > FCx5 for damage output, because you no longer get infinite Gauge from IR. So that damage can be distributed throughout the overall kit a bit better (Of course, still weighted towards Gauge spenders) as well as allowing more variation in IR rotations.

But of course, Fell Cleave will always be a staple for DPS output, just like how PLD's will always be using Holy Spirit and DRK's will always be using Bloodspiller, they're simply the jobs highest direct damage attacks and thus want to be spammed.

As far as more damage while tanking goes... That was an intentional design. Since, personally, I think it would be interesting if there was more weight put onto needing to be actively tanking in order to leverage maximum damage output for tanks. For example, turning actively mitigating damage into DPS gains (Such as PLD getting access to Shield Swipe and regaining MP or DRK generating MP and Blood with Blood Price)

Like, irregardless of designs of being a "MT" or "OT" I think tanks should be incentivised to be actively tanking, even if the gain is ultimately more DPS. The major thing is to do this without then making OT's step into damage intentionally to boost DPS (Which is a thing that happened in WoW on several occasions)

Without any reason to use BB combo except to sacrifice damage for more defense (we know how that goes), Theres really no difference between tanking and not except you get occasional free IBs to use. It sounds like a have your cake and eat it too version of the current stance system, which, while effective, doesnt sound very appealing to me personally.

Well, there may be some tuning needed here and there. But the general premise I was going for was trying to emulate PLD/DRK and their complete freedom to be in DPS stance all the time without losing access to any of their important skills, such as their potent active mitigation skills Sheltron/TBN.

Balancing Tank stances is always going to be tricky, when the meta of this game is literally to only use it for Enmity on a pull 99.99% of the time. Thus it's hard to make something like Tank Stance locked abilities (Such as Equilibrium's heal, IB and SC) actually exist outside soloing.

So, I thought about what if Tank stances were less punishing (By the nature of no longer being tied to a damage down multiplier at all). To which WAR still ends up being screwed over by the fact that IB and FC share resources and nought but removing their shared resources would make IB actually usable. (Meanwhile, PLD and DRK don't have this issue of multiple skills sharing a resource rendering one unused as a result. Well, outside of Clemency)

In addition, WAR's gameplay literally doesn't change between stances at all. It's still the same combo's leading to the same cost spenders. It's just, one does inferior damage. Also, one stance has a really good stat from stacks (Crit) and the other has a really mediocre stat from stacks (Parry).

So I thought about using a dual resource system to emulate their "Stances" and to create a unique aspect from other Tanks (Where DRK only has a single stance and PLD has 2 stances)

Of course, in isolation, it looks hella OP because it's "You get both stances at 0 cost"

Though, in my thoughts, I also envision a similar sort of boost to PLD and DRK stances to allow them to also "Have their cake and eat it". I just haven't gotten around to finalizing my ideas around their kits just yet. But a preface would be something like:

For PLD, stances become oGCD (Also, Shield Oath becomes default on, and it now uses just a single button to swap into the other stance) as well as adjusting ShO to also give MP when blocking (So ShO is good for regaining MP, especially in combination with Bulwark while SwO is superior for regaining Gauge)

For DRK, Grit has Blood Price as a passive effect. Grit is also oGCD to activate and costs 0 MP. Also, Blood Weapon can be used while in Grit and will deactivate Grit upon use (Essentially meaning you don't have to toggle off Grit and then use BW, you can just press BW to remove Grit)

Please don't take away our one and only stun

It can come back in some form. It's just that its current implementation is a little lacking, especially as a Role Action.

Especially given the number of things that are immune to Stuns (Or become immune to them because lelHolySpam or DRG's using Spineshatter) - So I reworked its main use (Interrupting abilities) into Interject.

I mean, 70-80 skills could include something like Furore (From Tactics A2) that could function as an AoE Stun for example. (Possibly adding to Mercy Stroke and Smite of Rage as non-Combo high MP cost GCD skills)

[Izsha]

I think my issue with this design is the incentive structure. On pld, you use a button to mitigate damage and you are rewarded by accessing more damage (mp and swipe). On drk, tbn rewards you for mitigating damage, and in grit anyway, are rewarded with increased damage. I have always thought that is the way to go for tanks. Give dps boosts for mitigating damage. Not the conflict now (war especially and drk somewhat) where you are rewarded for taking more damage due to stance locked dps actions.

Your version of warrior rewards you for passively taking damage and rewards you with mitigation and a smidge of dps. The incentives are backwards to me. Being passivly being hit shouldnt be rewarded, actively mitigating should be rewarded.

Random example, perhaps war is like rdm woth your 2 gauges and by threading the needle between rage and control (using defiance and deliverance actions in equal measure building both gauges) you gain access to inner release when they are both full or something like that. Maybe FC and IB now cost MP (to prevent spam)and give you gauge respectively. your combos give you mp back. When both gauges are full you get mega awesome IR. You are incentivised to use both sets of actions offense and defense and rewarded for not going to deep into 1 or the other.

Random idea, but I would like to see some way that being an effective tank actively doing defensive actions is rewarded, not discouraged as now, or just a freebie in your case.

[Kalise]

Your version of warrior rewards you for passively taking damage and rewards you with mitigation and a smidge of dps. The incentives are backwards to me. Being passivly being hit shouldnt be rewarded, actively mitigating should be rewarded.

You're welcome to suggest something for a unique WAR related mitigation that can then be used to turn into DPS.

Since, I personally struggle to think of a good example. Like covering the options I've thought about:

1) I thought about having the passive Defiance generation tied to Parried attacks (Similar to Shield Oath granting gauge on Block). But outside Raw Intuition there isn't any forced Parry chances (Also, including a "Sheltron" for Parry would feel too much like copying Paladin). As well as the fact that Parry reliance makes you gimped against casters because you can't parry spells.

2) WAR is thematically about having fat stacks of HP. So something like a HP variant of TBN wouldn't work very well (Since how would you tie the "Mitigation" bonus to such a skill? Especially if your health keeps getting topped off by healers?) - To say nothing about how the gameplay wouldn't be very unique (That, and it would literally just be saved to combo into Upheaval for bonus damage irregardless of incoming damage)

3) Using Inner Beast's current 20% damage reduction. Would again present problems. How would you tie something to this damage reduction? How would it interact with other CD's being used that provide damage reduction?

4) Should WAR randomly become a "Dodge" based tank? With the massive balance issues being apparent from the fact that dodge is 100% mitigation compared to Blocking (Which is ~20% damage reduction) and TBN (Which is 20% EHP) - Which would literally secure WAR as being the ultimate Tank and push out any ideas of a 2 tank composition because they'd just dodge every Tankbuster with their active mitigation.

Random example, perhaps war is like rdm woth your 2 gauges and by threading the needle between rage and control (using defiance and deliverance actions in equal measure building both gauges) you gain access to inner release when they are both full or something like that. Maybe FC and IB now cost MP (to prevent spam)and give you gauge respectively. your combos give you mp back. When both gauges are full you get mega awesome IR. You are incentivised to use both sets of actions offense and defense and rewarded for not going to deep into 1 or the other.

An interesting idea. One of the reasons I posted mine on the forums was to get feedback and ideas for improvement such as this.

Though, I'm curious as to how you'd see this "Mega awesome IR" working.

Since, personally, I hope for it to not be like current IR, where it throws resource management out the window and devolves into 5x FC all the time (As well as then making up ~40% of our overall damage output so as to make the time between IR's feel like crap)

Also, I wonder in what scenario you'd ever spend MP on IB in this case. When you can gain Defiance from using BB combos (Which, if current potencies aren't changed, would deal more damage than Storm's Path combo as is the case currently. SP is only preferred right now because SP gives 20 Gauge vs BB's 10 Gauge). Wouldn't people only use MP on Fell Cleave and basically never use Deliverance combo's outside of buff maintenance?

Random idea, but I would like to see some way that being an effective tank actively doing defensive actions is rewarded, not discouraged as now, or just a freebie in your case.

Again, I'm open to suggestions.

It's just that WAR currently doesn't have any thematic defense mechanic that lends itself to being a rewardable action. HP Stacking, Lifegain and secondarily Parry. None of which really lends itself to a interesting, cohesive and most importantly balanced mitigation > Reward system.

[Windwalker]

removing stun is a bad idea, its used on many big mobs with strong aoes, the only stun immune monsters are the bosses.

[Kalise]

removing stun is a bad idea, its used on many big mobs with strong aoes, the only stun immune monsters are the bosses.

But how necessary is a stun specifically?

Especially when I've made Interject work against all interruptible skills (Be they ability or spells).

Also, I've encountered plenty of non-boss stun immune targets. As well as stunnable targets (Including some bosses) that are very useful to stun for interrupting AoE's that end up hitting DR due to the nature of some DPS classes having stuns on some of their skills (I.e. DRG with Spineshatter Dive, MNK with Shoulder Tackle) or other such sources of stuns (Holy from WHM for example).

What specifically is it about Stun that is so vital, that having a single skill that is globally useful for interrupting skills, that is unaffected by DR and thus will always be able to be used to interrupt skills when necessary cannot compete or outperform?

Like, I get that Stun, and especially Tank's longer duration Stuns, can be useful for mitigating damage by locking down a target for several seconds. But if mitigation isn't a concern or if WHM is going to be chain stunning mobs with Holy anyway... How important is this effect?

[Windwalker]

Stun helps alot when multipulling, Monsters like the big crab in Shisui is a good example "when it casts Flush" also the monster just before the final boss in Sirensong "when it casts Seductive Scream" and theres probably many more monsters like this where stun is a good idea to use. People are just too lazy to notice the monsters abilities and what they do. Stun is also used in pvp to keep a healer from casting spells for example.

[Kalise]

Stun helps alot when multipulling, Monsters like the big crab in Shisui is a good example "when it casts Flush" also the monster just before the final boss in Sirensong "when it casts Seductive Scream" and theres probably many more monsters like this where stun is a good idea to use. People are just too lazy to notice the monsters abilities and what they do. Stun is also used in pvp to keep a healer from casting spells for example.

But... My change of Interject would stop that crab casting Flush. It'd also stop that miniboss casting Seductive Scream. Only, it'd be guaranteed that it'd work, because the crab wouldn't become immune to stun when the WHM in the party spams Holy (When you pull that crab alongside the next group of octopus and shark thing?) and that miniboss wouldn't end up becoming immune if you had a DRG/MNK in the party using their stun skills for DPS.

Similar thing would happen in PvP, where you could interrupt the healer casting spells (Also, due to the CD change I made, you could do it more frequently. If albeit, for shorter duration)

Again, why is STUN specifically necessary for these scenarios?

Just whining about how people are too stupid to interrupt these mechanics, when I'm literally making a change to improve the ability for the people who actually do notice these mechanics to interrupt them, does not influence my mind as to why removal of a stun is a "Bad idea"

Since, I am one of those people that does use the current Stun and Silence skills to deal with various skills, especially during mass pulls. Things like the big serpents at the start of Shisui that do the large AoE attack, I stun them out of it so I don't have to reposition enemies outside of persistent AoE's like Salted Earth/Shadow Flare.

The thing is, any form of interrupt would work against these skills. It's not a case of these skills being unaffected by anything but exclusively stuns. It's just a matter of, Silence doesn't work as they're not spells and there exists no other tool in Tanks kits other than Stun to prevent abilities. But I'm literally suggesting the implementation of a new tool to Tanks kits that will do the same thing, without needing to use 2 buttons in order to have access to an interrupt for Abilities and Spells.