Removing Auto Crits and Direct Hits from WAR

[Lucy_Pyre]

That doesn't mean we have to be chained to a single skill for the vast majority of interesting gameplay that comes up only once every 90 secs meanwhile the rest of the time its regarded as the worst class to play outside of IR. Go onto the Balance discord and ask the WARs there, I guarentee most of them there will say the job sucks to play until IR is off cooldown. Meaning 90% of the time the job sucks to play. How is that okay? You think SE isn't reading these forums and feedback? Its one of the most talked about feedback all this expansion that WAR got screw balled into getting only 1 new skill this expansion (DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT ARGUING CHAOS IS NEW SKILLS, THEY ARE PASSIVES). If you honestly think buffing WAR potencies is going to solve the class you are delusional. It was played in SB because it had the best damage and a far better cooldown choice than DRK with an actual raid wide AoE mitigation on top of being the best tank to pull during the Offensive Tank Stance Meta.

Your logic is busted with history, why wasn't DRK played more than PLD back in SB if damage is all that matters? Its just like SB all over again. One tank has a massive issue with its kit and overall utility rendering it the far least played tank out of all the others for the entire expansion. Guess what? Here we go again. PLD, DRK, and even GNB are fairly close to being chosen and played together, and WAR is in the shadows a distant memory.

I frankly don't care what 99% of the people in Balance think/say, because just like on the forums the vast majority of people there are just average skilled players who haven't the slightest clue what they're talking about, only repeating things that others have said without any thought of their own or proper understanding of the job. Wanna know something? Ninja works just like Warrior, except on 60 second cycles rather than 90. Ninja is "fun" for 15 seconds during Trick and then you're doing nothing but spamming Aeolian Edge combo with the occasional Armor Crush to refresh Huton while you wait for everything to come back. Contrary to what you seem to believe (and you shouldn't assert your beliefs onto others) some people actually quite enjoy this playstyle with a short window of extremely high burst followed by a downtime while you wait for your burst cooldown(s) to come back up. You already have three other tanks that function differently from this and have more smoothed out and sustained damage profiles, let one of the four be a "burst" style because, again, some people actually enjoy that.

[whiskeybravo]

I agree with Lucy, nothing wrong with WAR being the "burst" option. This burst factor is, at least imo, one of the more rewarding aspects of playing WAR. Like that feeling you get when coming up on enrage with boss at <5% and IR is coming off cooldown "Don't worry boys we got this".

I certainly sympathize with wanting more interaction for the *other* 70 seconds, but I've never disliked the "simplicity" because it allows me to focus on other things going on in the raid aside from my rotation. It's one of the other things I admire about WAR, it's basically had the same rotation forever. They introduced a new tank this expansion which played more like a DPS job and, unsurprisingly, people who wanted that sort of playstyle flocked to it. Nothing wrong with that.

What is kind of wrong is then saying stuff like "WAR needs to have more nuance during it's rotation like GNB". No. That's what GNB is for. Go play it. At this point nobody would argue that "GNB needs to be more like WAR", at least I don't get the impression anyone would. Just let them have their own playstyle, it's better for all of us to have a bit of diversity to chose from.

As for CDH system.. I'm not entirely sure. The whole WAR kit is more or less designed around it at this point. You couldn't just remove auto-crit without a substantial re-work of the rest of the kit to balance it out. At least to have anything different. Something as simple as changing Berserk back to damage instead, are we still going to be spamming Fell Cleave 5-7 times in a row? It doesn't change much, really. So I'm mostly OK with the current system, despite the few flaws it presents with regard to raid benefits.

Just my $.02

[BarretOblivion]

But quite a few jobs revolve atound 1 skill..
Ninja is all trick attack, same for Machinist.
You basically don't do much until your burst skill gets on CD again.

-_- Uhh, I won't comment on Ninja, but that's not MCH. You have different windows to balance around with drill/anchor and then your wildfire and during the down time you manage your heat to make sure you don't overcap. MCH has a main burst, and smaller bursts sprinkled in.

[ForteNightshade]

I frankly don't care what 99% of the people in Balance think/say, because just like on the forums the vast majority of people there are just average skilled players who haven't the slightest clue what they're talking about, only repeating things that others have said without any thought of their own or proper understanding of the job. Wanna know something? Ninja works just like Warrior, except on 60 second cycles rather than 90. Ninja is "fun" for 15 seconds during Trick and then you're doing nothing but spamming Aeolian Edge combo with the occasional Armor Crush to refresh Huton while you wait for everything to come back. Contrary to what you seem to believe (and you shouldn't assert your beliefs onto others) some people actually quite enjoy this playstyle with a short window of extremely high burst followed by a downtime while you wait for your burst cooldown(s) to come back up. You already have three other tanks that function differently from this and have more smoothed out and sustained damage profiles, let one of the four be a "burst" style because, again, some people actually enjoy that.

That is not in any way how I'd describe Ninja. Between Mudras, Bushin, TCJ and its base combo, Ninja is significantly more active than Warrior spamming the same button. Of course, this is all entirely subjective. Personally, I've always liked the simplicity of Warrior though I do prefer its HW and early SB iterations.

As for CDH system.. I'm not entirely sure. The whole WAR kit is more or less designed around it at this point. You couldn't just remove auto-crit without a substantial re-work of the rest of the kit to balance it out. At least to have anything different. Something as simple as changing Berserk back to damage instead, are we still going to be spamming Fell Cleave 5-7 times in a row? It doesn't change much, really. So I'm mostly OK with the current system, despite the few flaws it presents with regard to raid benefits.

Just my $.02

It really isn't. You could change IR to simply giving Warrior a flat damage increase on a comparable level to what CDHs provide and accomplish the same thing. I know several Warriors who would be very happy with such a change. They could also go the route of making DH no longer benefit tanks or healers at all, thus making all tanks go DET or TEN. Granted, they'd probably have to increase TEN a little but they really ought to do that anyway as it's currently garbage.

[whiskeybravo]

It really isn't. You could change IR to simply giving Warrior a flat damage increase on a comparable level to what CDHs provide and accomplish the same thing. I know several Warriors who would be very happy with such a change. They could also go the route of making DH no longer benefit tanks or healers at all, thus making all tanks go DET or TEN. Granted, they'd probably have to increase TEN a little but they really ought to do that anyway as it's currently garbage.

There are a lot of suggestions out there, I just don't see how most of them fundamentally change anything. What you're specifically saying here just sounds like a buff for buff's sake, giving IR baseline damage "comparable" to it's current damage with auto-CDH *plus* allowing it to interact with all the raid buffs. IE, to CDH on damage that's scaled up to be comparable with CDH damage.

No doubt there are more than a few warriors who would be happy with such a buff. In and of itself, however, this doesn't sound like it changes the nature of WAR burst damage nor FC/IC spam with 70 sec of boring downtime in between. IMO it's just a sneaky suggestion to move WAR back up the DPS ladder.

I'm not suggesting that WAR should or shouldn't be buffed. Personally I'd just like to them to stick to their previously exalted design philosophy of balancing utility with damage. WAR should probably be a little bit higher than PLD, for example. But overall the current spread tanks being within a couple hundred DPS is pretty solid, it just needs some fine tuning.

[Ultimatecalibur]

It really isn't. You could change IR to simply giving Warrior a flat damage increase on a comparable level to what CDHs provide and accomplish the same thing. I know several Warriors who would be very happy with such a change.

No, you and those other Warriors that claim that are completely forgetting the randomness of 4.0/4.1 when Berserk was a 30% percent increase in damage. The same exact rotation could randomly pass/fail DpS checks based on how many Fellcleaves D.Hit, Crit and Direct Crit while Berserk was up. Imagine doing the same SSS 3 time and barely passing once, completely failing once and passing with flying colors once all without changing your rotation.

They could also go the route of making DH no longer benefit tanks or healers at all, thus making all tanks go DET or TEN.

This would be a solid solution, but unlikely to happen as they would need to restat all 2.X to 3.X tank gear which once had accuracy and now has Direct Hit on it.

Granted, they'd probably have to increase TEN a little but they really ought to do that anyway as it's currently garbage.

Tenacity is not garbage. A constant 104.1% damage multiplier while also having 95.5% damage taken is just not as pretty as a 104.4% average damage multiplier that flashes up on the screen when it procs.

Tenacity actually scales really well as it gets higher as every 33 point decreases total damage taken by .1% while increasing damage by .1% (In comparison, Det is 26 points per .1% increase in damage). Tenacity's damage reduction actually gets better the more you have. Going from 1000 to 2000 Ten is a 2.8% reduction in damage taken while going from 2000 to 3000 Ten is a 3.2% reduction in damage taken.

[BarretOblivion]

I don't undestand the agrument that WAR is a burst tank therefore it shoudn't move and everything is fine with it being a drag to play outside of IR. Look at DRK, even with its issues of having Delirum being an IR the downtime for DRK is far more manageble while still being a... BURST TANK. You can have your cake and eat it too, that's no excuse to defend WAR's current state. Again, do you guys want 6.0 to come around and WAR once again getting no new skills and passives instead of evolving the job like every other job?

[ForteNightshade]

No, you and those other Warriors that claim that are completely forgetting the randomness of 4.0/4.1 when Berserk was a 30% percent increase in damage. The same exact rotation could randomly pass/fail DpS checks based on how many Fellcleaves D.Hit, Crit and Direct Crit while Berserk was up. Imagine doing the same SSS 3 time and barely passing once, completely failing once and passing with flying colors once all without changing your rotation.

Considering the skills of those players, I think they are acutely aware of how Warrior played. Regardless, who cares about SSS? Those dummies are purposely overtuned. Some jobs still struggle to kill theirs at i470.

Tenacity is not garbage. A constant 104.1% damage multiplier while also having 95.5% damage taken is just not as pretty as a 104.4% average damage multiplier that flashes up on the screen when it procs.

Tenacity actually scales really well as it gets higher as every 33 point decreases total damage taken by .1% while increasing damage by .1% (In comparison, Det is 26 points per .1% increase in damage). Tenacity's damage reduction actually gets better the more you have. Going from 1000 to 2000 Ten is a 2.8% reduction in damage taken while going from 2000 to 3000 Ten is a 3.2% reduction in damage taken.

And yet even in Ultimate no one gives more than a passing glance at Tenacity. It's only claim to famous is being better than a dead stat (Parry), and only considered for gear selection if no better option is available. You never meld it as Determination is simply better. Simply put, it exists and little else because those gains don't result in freeing a healer of a GCD heal. Therefore, it accomplishes nothing.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Considering the skills of those players, I think they are acutely aware of how Warrior played.

Skill does not inherently equal understanding and understanding does not inherently equal skill. Your attempts to dismiss my point by appealing to "experts" falters when you realize that many of those experts (which include Xeno) were complaining about the unreliability of the WAR's dps during 4.0/4.1.

Regardless, who cares about SSS? Those dummies are purposely overtuned. Some jobs still struggle to kill theirs at i470.

It is to give an easy way to illustrate the problem by wailing on a dummy. If you want something more pertinent to raiding, imagine a solo Tank add case, such as from O5S, now imagine having DpS with enough variance that you may not know if you will even pass the dps check during early prog.

[whiskeybravo]

I don't undestand the agrument that WAR is a burst tank therefore it shoudn't move and everything is fine with it being a drag to play outside of IR. Look at DRK, even with its issues of having Delirum being an IR the downtime for DRK is far more manageble while still being a... BURST TANK. You can have your cake and eat it too, that's no excuse to defend WAR's current state. Again, do you guys want 6.0 to come around and WAR once again getting no new skills and passives instead of evolving the job like every other job?

I mean, I'm not sure DRK is a good comparison since at least half the players are torn on whether they actually like this version better than any others. DRK reworks are still being talked about. Is that really having your cake and eating it too?

For me, at least, it's not so much an argument against change, but change for change's sake doesn't exactly have a good track record in this game. It's always a mixed reception at best. WAR's "formula" was successful in HW and SB, and along with the planned rework of DRK and introduction of GNB there's at least a nexus for understanding why there wasn't a significant overhaul to WAR's playstyle. Or at least, why they would have been reluctant to change too much with it.

And if we really want to take the time machine back to the past, when all the other tanks were screaming about nerfing WAR because it was too OP the last 2 expansions, I repeatedly advocated for bringing the other tanks up to WAR's level instead of "knocking it down a peg". This is pretty much exactly what SE did, they reworked and made the other tanks better while not changing much with WAR. And to clarify, I don't mean this to be acceptable per se, I just see it as rather reasonable on SE's part. GNB was going to be "overtuned" to help ensure it's popularity at launch. DRK was promised to be better. They probably didn't realize how much stronger PLD was going to be with improved uptime ability. And I think WAR was looked at apprehensively due to the 2 years of "NERF WAR" feedback from the community.

At the end of the day (aka this raid cycle), it's not like there's a massive, game-breaking disparity between the 4 tanks. They did a pretty decent job all things considered, and it doesn't deviate too much from what our expectations should've been at the outset.

As someone who's played WAR since ARR released, I'm perfectly fine with the way it plays. Why should I care if some new-comers (or elitist 99th'er types) show up and don't like it? Pick another tank. Or another job. There's plenty of diversity available.