Is anyone surprised at this point?

[Lyth]

...

It's precisely enough of a change to push WAR's average combo potency above both DRK and GNB. In order for burst and sustain to be balanced, you need to be at a relative disadvantage outside of your burst window and catch up during your burst. If you have it both ways, why would you play anything else? This is where both Heavensward and Stormblood fell short.

Downtime always benefits burst. Uptime always benefits sustain. But there has to be a trade-off. Otherwise you just have a high damage tank vs. a low damage tank, instead of burst vs. sustain. That's not a trade-off. You're just forced to take the higher damage option.

Giving players more variety to choose from is important. I'm not going back to WAR. Nor, I suspect, are the players who discovered GNB this expansion as an engaging, high damage tank. That's a pretty good thing. There are plenty of people who will want to pick WAR anyways because it feels comfortable, has flexible burst windows, and has excellent self-healing for soloing content. You could attract even more players by making the gameplay decisions more engaging and less mind numbing. That's a much better move than inflating its numbers to make people feel better about themselves.

But I think that if they actually read through NA/EU player feedback about tank ennui, or had community teams that were feeding this back up the chain, they would have known all this for a long time.

[whiskeybravo]

Downtime always benefits burst. Uptime always benefits sustain. But there has to be a trade-off. Otherwise you just have a high damage tank vs. a low damage tank, instead of burst vs. sustain. That's not a trade-off. You're just forced to take the higher damage option.

But this is exactly what's happening. WAR is ahead in fights with more downtime while GNB/PLD are ahead on uptime fights. The problem with DRK is the same it's been since the end of HW, it no longer has an identity. Like it's trying to be a combination of burst and sustain but falls short of excelling at either (maybe on purpose since it'd be too OP to have both the burst and sustain advantage...) IMO the most sensible option is to hone the burst aspect so we have 2 burst and 2 sustain tanks.

[Lyth]

In fairness, LD is pretty good as far as healer CDs are concerned. Holmgang and Superbollide both have you burn Benediction. All you need for LD is Swiftcast (Raise).

The buff was to WAR's sustain, not its burst. Both DRK and GNB have a baseline lower potency combo compared to WAR after this change.

DRK in Heavensward and Stormblood has historically been the most sustain-focused tank at a time when sustain always lost out to burst. In Shadowbringers, it's suddenly burst focused, just in time for the balance to have shifted. But none of this really matters as long as they're consistent. If burst always is to win, then everyone is ultimately going to have to end up with Fell Chaos spam. If there's to be a trade-off, then yes, you will find jobs that have higher uptime requirements win out in dps once the fight is mastered. Skill should 100% translate into performance.

And that's what DRK players have really been asking for. This job was sold out the gate in Heavensward as the 'difficult tank'. That's why abilities like Living Dead have bizarre penalties attached. But that has to translate into some sort of a reward or benefit. I want to see the job have both a higher skill cap and a resultant performance edge when played well. And maybe that they iron out the jank while they're at it.

[whiskeybravo]

Both DRK and GNB have a baseline lower potency combo compared to WAR after this change.

And? They both have a lot more than their baseline combo going on to compensate

[Lyth]

...

If your burst window is bigger than everyone else, your combo potencies and baseline GCD values outside of burst should be smaller than everyone else. Anything else is a recipe for Heavensward or Stormblood era tank balance. You can't have it both ways.

[Kabooa]

If your burst window is bigger than everyone else, your combo potencies and baseline GCD values outside of burst should be smaller than everyone else. Anything else is a recipe for Heavensward or Stormblood era tank balance. You can't have it both ways.

A cursory look at 5.5 data shows Warrior only winning decisively on Fatebreaker. (For generous terms of 'winning' and 'decisively' because the difference is a crit swing.)

On full uptime like Doorboss, it's 3rd, on mixed uptime like Oracle it's near dead even with Gun/Paladin.

It looks like all that's needed is a 2% PPS boost for Dark Knight.

[WhyAmIHere]

It looks like all that's needed is a 2% PPS boost for Dark Knight.

And an identity. Don't forget that.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

A cursory look at 5.5 data shows Warrior only winning decisively on Fatebreaker. (For generous terms of 'winning' and 'decisively' because the difference is a crit swing.)

WAR isn't winning when you look at aDPS, which is a significant distinction when looking at tank damage balance.

[whiskeybravo]

A cursory look at 5.5 data shows Warrior only winning decisively on Fatebreaker. (For generous terms of 'winning' and 'decisively' because the difference is a crit swing.)

On full uptime like Doorboss, it's 3rd, on mixed uptime like Oracle it's near dead even with Gun/Paladin.

It looks like all that's needed is a 2% PPS boost for Dark Knight.

And Diamond, which is a decent example of burst/downtime synergy.

If your burst window is bigger than everyone else, your combo potencies and baseline GCD values outside of burst should be smaller than everyone else. Anything else is a recipe for Heavensward or Stormblood era tank balance. You can't have it both ways.

Except for the inconvenient fact that, unlike the other tanks, WAR has practically nothing other than basic combo GCDs. If all these changes accomplished was putting WAR where it should be accordingly to the burst/downtime play then what exactly are you still complaining about? I get that you'd rather have DRK be a sustain tank so it dominates in the overly present dummy fights but it'd still be a better development choice to have 2 burst and 2 sustain while designing fights so that each has their opportunity to shine.

You repeatedly say "you can't have it both ways" yet GNB almost certainly has, why don't you harp on that more often? Is it OK to have it both ways when it's "complex"?

[Lyth]

Burst jobs shouldn't be winning decisively in any fight. We get coffee breaks. They don't.

...

If you wanted to boost WAR's dps, the place to do so is by improving their burst.

Let me explain. In order to do "burst" damage, you do less damage most of the time, and then do most of your damage all at once. There has to be some contrast. If you boost your average damage so that there's less of a difference, it stops being "burst". You end up devaluing your own supermoves because even your baseline attack potencies are inflated.

By the way, DRK is also a burst tank at present. I really don't want it to be, in part because I personally don't think that any iteration of Fell Cleave x3, Fell Cleave x6, or Fellest Cleave were engaging, challenging, or fun. I don't believe that every time you press a button, something awesome has to happen, but I understand why game designers do. Button = Awesome. Operant conditioning at its finest. I get WAR's appeal.

DRK's appeal in Heavensward wasn't that we were WAR. It was because to the broader playerbase, being skilled at DRK meant that you were good. I'd like to reclaim a bit of that feeling again with the job. We could just nominate GNB to that role, but they don't quite have the same sense of style.

I think burst tanks should exist, because as was pointed out, they're comfortable to play for the average player and are low skill, high reward. But I don't think that they should be beating out jobs that just take more effort to be skilled at.