Tank Balance Patch next pls? Nascent Flash Target Requirement Removed Pls

[Shurrikhan]

[1] Like I said, I'm not able to judge how big this change would be or how many times it would save a situation that couldn't be saved before. It would still be more than a QoL change, since it would also modify every situation where the group is spread enough so that the WAR won't have a party member nearby, even if it's not necessarily game breaking.

[2] Pushed to the extreme, yes, invulns already have that kind of "issue"...with WAR also being the best one at this, with the shorter CD and the self-healing capabilites... that would be increased even more with the target removal.

[1] At that point, though is anything QoL? To use the Dragon Sight example again, would it? There's the one in a million chance, after all, that it'll come off cooldown right at the last 1% of boss HP before enrage and the DRG will need every drop of that 10% buff to carry the day. There's the chance that SMN DoTs being applied instantly instead of keeping their earlier artificial delay will have shifted an oGCD 600 ms earlier into a fight and therefore have allowed for one more use before a jump which in turn avoids enrage due to the extra 300 potency over the course of a fight.

To what extent are we going to belabor an insignificant advantage with an insignificant chance to see use in an insignificant portion of fights as if were something worth balancing around when the mere standard deviation attached to every attack, let alone Crit or Direct Hit chance, has several times their effect in every fight?

[2] Then... what? Remove all variance in tank toolkits? How often do you honestly expect that a Warrior will be the last man standing in any way that NF can generate a difference? I'd suspect the frequency of that particular potential clutch moment will be a heck of a lot less than what Clemency already provides.

[Reynhart]

[1] At that point, though is anything QoL? To use the Dragon Sight example again, would it?

I never said that the change in Dragon Sight was a QoL. In fact, since it allowed you keep the buff even if your partner moves away, it's a buff in more situation that what is proposed here for NF.

To what extent are we going to belabor an insignificant advantage with an insignificant chance to see use in an insignificant portion of fights as if were something worth balancing around when the mere standard deviation attached to every attack, let alone Crit or Direct Hit chance, has several times their effect in every fight?

But if it's that insignificant, why even change it, especially if the reason if that you don't want to switch target for it ? It's an oGCD, so it's not really a problem to use it in a macro to target "p2" in your party, which can easily be forced in your party order to be the other tank. I'm pretty sure you will use it to save a DPS' life in savge less time than the situation we've described above.

[2]I'd suspect the frequency of that particular potential clutch moment will be a heck of a lot less than what Clemency already provides.

In solo situation, this change would give WAR more healing capabilites than Clemency, while requiring no DPS sacrifice. And it would still be one additional thing to a job that already has one of the (if not the) best mitigation toolkit as a whole.

[Shurrikhan]

I never said that the change in Dragon Sight was a QoL. In fact, since it allowed you keep the buff even if your partner moves away, it's a buff in more situation that what is proposed here for NF.

I did not mean to imply that you had. I apologize if it seemed that way; that's the last thing I'd want to do right now. Though, I don't remember it ever canceling your own side of the buff when an ally moved out of range even before, though I could very well be misremembering.

But if it's that insignificant, why even change it, especially if the reason if that you don't want to switch target for it ? It's an oGCD, so it's not really a problem to use it in a macro to target "p2" in your party, which can easily be forced in your party order to be the other tank. I'm pretty sure you will use it to save a DPS' life in savge less time than the situation we've described above.

And is it good practice for abilities to be designed in such a way that they are best used without the ability to queue them, or to effectively break a skill as soon as a given party member is dead?

Let's take another example, for instance, that's... only marginally "QoL": instead of Anatman granting GL on the server tick, it grants one at the end of each GCD spend channeling it.

Now, that would be a big change, and arguably even a dps loss -- as there was a much greater chance of lucking out and getting two ticks over 3 seconds than always getting the one consistently. Yet, that and similar suggestion have been ad nauseum if only to give the skill consistency and make something that most Monks find outright unenjoyable less obligatory in their rotation. The effect on gameplay does matter, and I'd argue that when some seemingly arbitrary, unnecessary, or ill-conceived restriction makes some part of a toolkit less intuitive or outright less enjoyable, the balancing concerns weighed against that need to practical, realistic, not just a worse case scenario.

Hell, Form Shift and Earth's Reply 2.0 were each sold as "QoL". For that I'd fully agree: they weren't -- not quite. The latter, especially, had fairly frequent and new benefits for a Monk in any party which couldn't constantly work around them. But this? It's something that designed in such a way that obviously works best for X, and yet is forced into unnecessary hassles in some cases when doing X. In general, is that worth it? Is that an ideally designed ability? And if not, how ridiculous is it to want to remove some hassle from it so it feels more reasonably designed? Where, for any other skill, would you draw the line?

Of course, if you honestly believe that even a single use of Clemency is less likely than the last 1% of a boss's HP timing out to IR-NF-Equilibrium where only the Warrior remains and somehow couldn't use NF just a moment sooner when someone was still alive (and that is exactly the situation we'd just described early; though if you just meant Dragon Sight in this case, my bad)... I don't know, man. We might not be able to see eye to eye on this one.

[Reynhart]

Now, that would be a big change, and arguably even a dps loss -- as there was a much greater chance of lucking out and getting two ticks over 3 seconds than always getting the one consistently. Yet, that and similar suggestion have been ad nauseum if only to give the skill consistency and make something that most Monks find outright unenjoyable less obligatory in their rotation.

This is not the same here. You don't have any control over the server ticks, and, with a fluctuating ping, it can be hard to pinpoint them precisely. So, this change would take give more control to the player. Having a skill requiring a target is a fully understandable condition on how to use the skill.

You still realize that NF is supposed to be the counterpart to Intervention, or casting TBN/HoS on someone else, right ? If you remove the target requirement, WAR will simply stop using it on others because it will be quicker to use it on them when main tanking. Even though this skill is the most powerful one when it comes will dealing with double tankbusters.

Of course, if you honestly believe that even a single use of Clemency is less likely than the last 1% of a boss's HP timing out to IR-NF-Equilibrium where only the Warrior remains and somehow couldn't use NF just a moment sooner when someone was still alive (and that is exactly the situation we'd just described early; though if you just meant Dragon Sight in this case, my bad)...

You don't even need your full burst package to heal a good chunk of HP from NF. A single Inner Chaos will heal more than what Clemency does, while doing damage. And even Fell Cleave is already pretty good.

[Shurrikhan]

If you remove the target requirement, WAR will simply stop using it on others because it will be quicker to use it on them when main tanking.

Warriors will just voluntarily give up any and all additional healing and mitigation they could have done? The job we're worried about being able to gain a (not even wholly unique) advantage in an incredibly unlikely scenario... would be happy to give up throughput for zero gain?

You've presented two fears. The first requires one in a million circumstances: (1) NF comes off cooldown between the last non-Warrior dying and when the Warrior would otherwise die; (2) Inner Release or two stacks of Infuriate are also coincidentally timed to this moment so NF can actually do anything; (3) the Warrior then proceeds to solo the boss on the back of what amounts to 3 GCDs of Bloodbath. The second is that allowing NF in single content can give Warriors the option to... actively waste their on-demand external mitigation kit? Those are not reasonable fears by which to deny QoL changes. No more than they were for making SMN DoTs afflict the target immediately so that Fester isn't pushed to a GCD later for high-ping players. No more than making AM respond more quickly. No more than increasing Shukuchi's movement speed. No more than decreasing Jump's animation lock. If you must split hairs and declare that QoL changes outright do not exist so long as it can generate any advantage, regardless of its significance or accessibility or frequency (such that the Holmgang buff to allow movement and handy button consolidation are treated with the exact same scrutiny), then fine: NF being allowed in solo content is not a QoL buff because nothing is. But that's certainly not how the devs has looked at these things. And it's certainly not how the community has seen it, either, if we were to apply the same guidelines to any other job.

A single Inner Chaos will heal more than what Clemency, while doing damage.

Then, again, nerf the on-self healing. Give at most 25% healing to both self and the affected target rather than 50% and then 50% of 50%. Or reverse it, a la Clemency, with you getting the 25% and them getting the 50% and maybe giving a temporary increase to max HP instead of the 10% miti. We already have a stronger skill than allowing its use solo would allow.

tl;dr: It makes no sense to create a situationally superior MT skill and then classify it solely as an OT skill. That's it.

[Reynhart]

Warriors will just voluntarily give up any and all additional healing and mitigation they could have done ?

Then, again, nerf the on-self healing.

I'm confused...you seem to think that improved usability would be less important than skill potency in real fights yet you suggest to reduce skill potency as a trade-off for improved usability in its mechanic. Did I miss something ?

(2) Inner Release or two stacks of Infuriate are also coincidentally timed to this moment so NF can actually do anything

NF has a 25s CD, Infuriate has a 60s CD with potentially two charges and a reduced CD every time you spend 50 Gauge. Those two being available at the same time is not that far-fetched. And you still have equilibrium to use in-between.

We already have a stronger skill than allowing its use solo would allow.

What skill ? Raw Intuition ? It seems easy to heal more HP during NF than what RI would have reduced.

It makes no sense to create a situationally superior MT skill and then classify it solely as an OT skill. That's it.

NF is not "an OT skill". It's a "dual tank skill". Something that DRK and GNB can't do and that would require either a full gauge for PLD (Intervention+Sheltron) or a DPS loss (Clemency), to achieve less power in both situations. And that superior skill has the only drawback of requiring a partner.

[Shurrikhan]

What skill ? Raw Intuition ? It seems easy to heal more HP during NF than what RI would have reduced.

No, not RI -- NF itself. NF used with the inclusion of a second target has more healing and more mitigation, with no further cost relative to not having those extras. It is clearly stronger than would be NF if used without a second target. We already have the stronger NF; it just can't be used in solo-content. It's the same question as with Dragon Sight. How many times must this be repeated?

NF is not "an OT skill". It's a "dual tank skill". Something that DRK and GNB can't do and that would require a full gauge for PLD to achieve less power, unless you use another CD on top of that.

If it requires a second target and increases their, not your, eHP, it's an OT skill. Sure, like Clemency it can provide self-benefit. Like Intervention, its use will almost certainly mean significant dual-tank strength. But it absolutely cannot be self-cast and used in the same capacity and with same targeting as any other OT skill. Are we going to split hairs on this until we have "OT-but-functionally-dualist", "OT-but-with-self-uptime-benefit-conveyed-to-other", "MT/OT, but with preferred targeting due to timing concerns over the triggered effect" and the like? Does this need the same scrutiny as to whether Shadow Fang is a GCD (it is; it triggers the global recast and shares lockout according to the global recast)? As far as targeting is concerned, which is the entire concern here, it's OT skill. It's that simple.

I'm confused...you seem to think that improved usability would be less important than skill potency in real fights yet you suggest to reduce skill potency as a trade-off for improved usability in its mechanic. Did I miss something?

Apparently? I don't know if repeating it a third time will help any, but here goes, I guess: Designing a skill such that is situationally superior to your self-mitigation skill, especially against low-rate sustained damage, but then artificially barring it from use except as an OT-mitigation skill through its targeting procedures makes no sense.