Leveling Kit tweaks for Tank Jobs

[bundythenoob]

Onslaught is a strange beast. It's technically dps neutral for it's cost, with the benefit of the lowest CD of the gap closers on tanks, as well as the longest range. The issue is you lose out on potential better damage, as it's only a gain if you're making up for a lost GCD via the gap closer OR if it's used under IR.

This is in contrast to PLD and GNB, which want to stuff their gap closers into their dps window. DRK is a bit of a middle ground, as they only want to dump their charges under raid buffs, but otherwise are free to keep a charge in the tank as needed. Onslaught is perfectly fine where it is imo, because it's great for utility and ok for damage under the right circumstances. If you remove the cost then it just becomes free damage used on CD, and if you buff it then it just becomes something you use on CD. As it stands now, it's actually a decision that needs to be made instead of something you use as soon as it's available.

My friend had an idea he told me about the other night. he said it might be cool if the lv 15 ranged attack generated the gauge needed to use the gap closer, but I'm not sure how much of a big change that would bring. also he said he desperately wants butcher's block back, perhaps repurposed as an alternate combo ender with either a buff or a dot . thoughts?

[Quor]

also he said he desperately wants butcher's block back, perhaps repurposed as an alternate combo ender with either a buff or a dot . thoughts?

I suggested something nearly identical to that back in Stormblood. The general idea was for each aggro combo to place a debuff on the target that increased damage dealt by 1%, with each tank having it's own unique version of said debuff (so 2% damage bonus possible, 1% from each tank). Have the debuff last 30s, meaning each tank is incentivized to throw out one aggro combo every half minute. Fairly simple, but provides worth and reason for using the aggro combo, but not to the exclusion of the other combos. I also wanted them to treat each aggro combo similar to Butcher's Block. BB was actually the highest potency combo for WAR, but it was overshadowed by the 20 gauge gain on Storm's Path, since 10 more gauge was worth more potency than the 30 additional potency you got doing HS>SS>BB. But at least this way you've got a nice utility debuff paired with the highest raw potency combo a tank can do. Maybe the actual potency numbers would have needed tweaking, but maybe there would have been justification for certain situations where putting the 3rd hit or the 2nd and 3rd hit of your aggro combo inside raid buff windows was worthwhile.

One thing I've learned about these boards is that most people here are sheep. That might sound harsh, but it's merely my observation. Appeals to emotion or authority, logical fallacies all the way down, no desire to any meaningful debate...I could go on. Now to be fair, I've had some good discussions with a few people around here to be sure, but it's a sad truth of most humans that they are much more prone to making the easy criticism than they are to try and take a risk and actually suggest something and face that criticism themselves. This is to say nothing of making a criticism and then trying to create a synthesis of concept by offering their own suggestion.

Suffice it to say, my idea was not well-received. Most people just wanted to "get rid" of aggro combos. More simplification. Of course, these same people often sneered at those people who couldn't "git gud" at a job, so it was ironic seeing them encourage further dumbing down of tank gameplay.

Anyway, I don't suggest too much nowadays. There's a handful of people who are willing and able to engage in meaningful discussion, and I enjoy the occasional conversation I have with them on the boards, but mostly people look at FFlogs or listen to the e-celeb flavor of the month to get their "idea" of how tanks are doing, with little thought beyond that. Maybe the numbers on FFlogs "don't look right" to them or something, so SE has to have all hands on deck to buff tank damage because it "feels bad" or something. Nothing interesting that would add challenge or complexity to the job; just gimme bigger numbers. Or the tired refrain that "only" dps matters, but when you bring up that if the healers don't heal and the tanks don't tank then no fight would ever progress past the first 60 seconds, and it's just assumed that the tanks and healers will be flawlessly performing their tank/heal stuff so that means the only thing that matters is damage. Peak sophistry. It's all so tiresome. The kind of tired that sleep won't fix.

As for your other suggestion, I've often thought about what would happen if the tanks each had something unique tied to their ranged attacks. Not anything that you would want to incorporate on a regular basis, but something where "oh, I have to do this mechanic so it's time to spam my ranged attack for 4 GCD's" isn't seen as a complete and total loss like it is now. It could be something as simple as DRK gains like 100-200 MP, GNB gets a small stacking potency buff on their next attack (20 pot per attack, stacks 3 times maybe), that sort of thing. Taking that idea and expanding it I think having Tomahawk grant beast gauge is too simple, and too strong. Every 10 points of gauge is worth ~118 potency, and that would damn near double the effective potency of Tomahawk, which is a huge buff. But the idea is certainly a sound one. Taking a page from DRK, maybe Tomahawk grants a buff for 15s that makes the next use of Onslaught free. You could only ever have one of this buff at a time, but repeated uses of Tomahawk would refresh the duration on the buff, essentially giving WAR all the incentive in the world to dive back in when the opportunity arises.

That's a hair too much like DRK though (specifically how Dark Arts works, albeit much more limited here) so let's add a bit more to it. In addition to this "free Onslaught" buff, Tomahawk would also grant a second buff that stacks up to 3 times. This buff would make it so that the next non-Tomahawk GCD has an additional two effects; first off, each stack of the buff grants an extra 20 raw potency to the attack, for a maximum of 60 additional potency. This potency would work on stuff from Heavy Swing and Overpower to Inner Chaos and Chaotic Cyclone; every GCD in other words. Secondly, with at least one stack of this buff, the next non-Tomahawk GCD used would also refresh Storm's Eye back to it's full duration.

Putting all this together, WAR now has a ranged attack that zeroes the cost of their gap closer, making it a bit easier to maintain their rotation over the course of a fight (no more being stuck out because you miscalculated gauge or missed a GCD by a hair at some point). At the same time, it also increases complexity; 60 free potency isn't much, but 60 free guaranteed direct crit potency sure is nice. That's essentially 10% of a Fell Cleave. WAR now has an incentive to unleash a big attack - ideally Inner Chaos or an IR'd Fell Cleave - immediately after closing back in on the target, the better to optimize this 60 potency with. WAR's are now rewarded for planning ahead a bit more with their CD usage, maybe tweaking Infuriate use or slightly delaying an IR window in order to maximize the damage gain.

And if you can't get that whole 60 potency, then you still get at least 20 potency, a free Onslaught, and SE gets refreshed in a single GCD. This would tackle a pair of QoL issues for WAR but in a way that's way more interesting than something like increasing SE's duration or what not.

[bundythenoob]

i quite like the idea of the ranged attacks not breaking your combo and giving each job a small QOL perk. the idea that tomahawk could refresh SE buff and make your next onslaught free would be really nice, ideally a trait you can get in the mid 60s. the 60 potency thing would probably work out if they made it a high level trait (like 70+) so as to not upset the balance for ultimate content while also making the other 3 jobs have unique versions of that.

as for the return of the old emnity combos, I'm not sure why anyone would rather see them removed than be repurposed, but i do like the idea of them giving you something else. i don't think square wants to return to mandatory debuffs, but small QOL changes would be nice too. Can't think of anything good atm without breaking balance though, but that's more due to square's insistence that tank job damage be curtailed so hard (a whole separate issue entirely)