GNB QoL Change:

[Satarn]

I dropped GNB after first tier of SHB due to boredom, picked it up again in EW despite expecting it to get worse, but ended up actually enjoying the changes. Here's my take:

"We have to save 3 cardridges for No Mercy now!"

Good - finally GNB's resource is something to actually pay attention to and manage. Yeah, it may be iffy with weird downtime timings, but it can be planned around. I was afraid that being able to store 3 charges would push all our Burst Strikes into No Mercy, making downtime boring, but Bloodfest also granting 3 and staying at 90 sec cd prevents it. Another good thing about BF cd is that it keeps burst windows a little different from each other, which is also welcome. Putting it on 60 sec like everything else would make GNB play the same every minute, which would be horrible. We have enough jobs like that.

"Hypervelocity makes it near impossible to double-weave mitigation!"

So? You don't need double cooldowns to mitigate TBs in normal modes and in EX/Savage you should know the timeline well enough to pop the long cd early, in order to get it back faster anyhow. You only need one weave window right before TB for Heart of Corundum, due to the 4 second duration.
Letting GNB use Continuations more freely would completely ruin their point and what little identity the job has. It's supposed to be the pull of the trigger right as you strike, not another rando ogcd like every other job's got. It's like asking to decouple ninjutsu from mudras. You already have 2 non-continuation gcds to double weave in during your burst, not counting basic combo.

"Continuation makes it hard to move the boss!"

Yea, that one I totally agree with. It's not impossible of course, but it is an issue and has been since SHB, because movement in this game is jank in general. Moving bosses is part of the fun in tanking, so it's a shame when the game encourages shirking this duty to the other tank.
This could easily be solved by just increasing the range on all Continuation abilities, as has been asked for the past 2 years.

[Ixon]

Good - finally GNB's resource is something to actually pay attention to and manage. Yeah, it may be iffy with weird downtime timings, but it can be planned around. I was afraid that being able to store 3 charges would push all our Burst Strikes into No Mercy, making downtime boring, but Bloodfest also granting 3 and staying at 90 sec cd prevents it. Another good thing about BF cd is that it keeps burst windows a little different from each other, which is also welcome. Putting it on 60 sec like everything else would make GNB play the same every minute, which would be horrible. We have enough jobs like that..

Personally, I don't like the max three gauge because it makes our general rotation more boring, and you still have to deal with the annoyance of farming three gauge for burst. As it stands now, after you are out of your No Mercy window, you spend the next 40sec building gauge plus one Gnashing Fang Combo. We may get more in the No Mercy window, but the rotation is way more stagnant outside of it. I'll even go as far to say that it might be better for the job to be reverted back to two gauge max, because then at least you would be using more of your gauge rather than stockpiling for 40sec every minute. Then there is still the issue of needing three gauge max for every burst that any boss downtime throws out of whack. You can argue it's just a skill issue, but I personally don't see the skill in needing to hold a cartridge from a minute ago just so boss jump timings don't ruin your whole rotation, it's just an annoyance.

[Satarn]

As it stands now, after you are out of your No Mercy window, you spend the next 40sec building gauge plus one Gnashing Fang Combo. We may get more in the No Mercy window, but the rotation is way more stagnant outside of it.

I fully agree it would be awful if that was the case, however... it's not. We still get a varying number of extra Burst Strikes between our No Mercy windows, as we still generate enough cardridges to overcap otherwise, since Bloodfest gives us more than it used to. The difference is that now you have to be a tad more mindful about blowing those up in case of downtimes.

In a way every mechanic is "an annoyance" to someone. Working around the jobs' annoyances is their gameplay and getting rid of them to "smooth things out" has led to many jobs losing their identity and engagement in my opinion. I wouldn't say that current GNB is in any way a big-brain job with these changes, but it's about the most we can hope for with a modern ffxiv tank.

[Ixon]

I fully agree it would be awful if that was the case, however... it's not. We still get a varying number of extra Burst Strikes between our No Mercy windows, as we still generate enough cardridges to overcap otherwise, since Bloodfest gives us more than it used to. The difference is that now you have to be a tad more mindful about blowing those up in case of downtimes.

In a way every mechanic is "an annoyance" to someone. Working around the jobs' annoyances is their gameplay and getting rid of them to "smooth things out" has led to many jobs losing their identity and engagement in my opinion. I wouldn't say that current GNB is in any way a big-brain job with these changes, but it's about the most we can hope for with a modern ffxiv tank.

This had me curious so I did some investigating. I started by comparing the Normal mode fights of EW with some of the normal mode fights from ShB that I felt were equivalent in the amount of uptime while also keeping all the kill times around the 8min mark in an effort to make the comparisons as fair as possible. With this, I saw that EW GNB produced approximately 2/3rds the amount of total Burst Strikes that it did in ShB. This should be no surprise with the addition of Double Down reserving two cartridges every minute. However, even with Bloodfest giving us an additional cartridge every 90sec, GNB on average produced approximately 2-4 less Burst Strikes outside of No Mercy per given 8min encounter. Now while I agree this isn't much, the data I have seen at least confirms my suspicion that we spend more time building gauge outside of No Mercy than spending it in EW compared to ShB, even if by a small amount.

With that out of the way, there is still the underlying issues this current iteration of GNB brings that are outside of just a mere "skill issue":
- GNB is probably the most punished tank if a death occurs right before a burst due to the other tanks bursts being mostly cooldown based and not as gauge based for their abilities like I had mentioned earlier. You do not need gauge to Inner Release, Fight or Flight, Req(MP sure, but you can still get it out and still Confiteor), Delirium(Living Shadow does, but unless you died after hitting Blood Weapon, it will give you the needed gauge in three GCD's).
- GNB is the only tank to need to save a gauge from 40sec ago in a previous burst, to be able to hit their Double Down and Gnashing Fang on cooldown if a fight has considerable downtime(argument as a skill issue, just seems like a unique annoyance).
- GNB is more punished for using their gauge(like using Gnashing Fang on the last bit of mobs before a boss) even if it was optimal at the time, if it means they will not have full, or close to full, gauge come time to hit Double Down + Gnashing Fang.
- Double Down plus the ability to hold a third cartridge replaced our smooth, loopable rotation(like most other jobs have) with one that feels unnatural to optimally use(like having to No Mercy AFTER Gnashing Fang in your No Mercy + Bloodfest window because it's less potency than Burst Strike + Hypervelocity).
- Seeming optimal rotations feel suboptimal as the current No Mercy duration does not leave enough room for Hypervelocity if you end on a Burst Strike.

Why do these all matter? It's because these issues did not exist in ShB. In a nutshell, SE took a job that was fine in ShB and riddled it with more problems than solutions in EW. Even with all this, I still enjoy playing GNB, but I would enjoy it so much more if SE could simple add the new stuff without also adding a bunch of clunky baggage. Look at WAR or PLD(excluding their damage complaints) and you can see how they can make changes that almost only improve on the quality of the job.