Thoughts on PLD/GNB/DRK

[Absurdity]

Gunbreaker (GNB):
GNB Suggestions
> Increase Continuation range to match SAM's Iaijutsu.

> Fated Circle and Double Down grant Ready to Blast. Lean in to Hypervelocity!

> Remove the 4s bonus 15%+ from Corundum, change it to a flat 20% for 8s.

I can agree with adding more range to Continuation...and that's about it.


Hard no to adding even more Continuation, GnB already has issues with weaving mitigation during burst windows and we certainly don't need to make that even worse.


And making HoC 20% mit for 8 seconds defeats the entire purpose of those new abilities. They're supposed to only provide that increased mitigation for 4 seconds to make timing them correctly important.

[Aegis_Harvey]

I can agree with adding more range to Continuation...and that's about it.


Hard no to adding even more Continuation, GnB already has issues with weaving mitigation during burst windows and we certainly don't need to make that even worse.


And making HoC 20% mit for 8 seconds defeats the entire purpose of those new abilities. They're supposed to only provide that increased mitigation for 4 seconds to make timing them correctly important.

My friend, I don't believe you've read my entire suggestion.

On second thought, I'd agree having Double Down grant Ready to Blast is overkill because it already lines up so well with Bow Shock and Blasting Zone, but having Fated Circle grant it doesn't add to that problem at all - Fated Circle is just AoE Burst Strike, and Burst Strike grants Ready to Blast.

GNB having issues with weaving mitigation is exactly why I suggest adding mitigation to the weaving. In my hypothetical, timing a Burst Strike (or Fated Circle) well grants you that short window of 10% mitigation for a big hit, and you can swap the order of a 1-2-3 combo and BS in your rotation to get that Hypervelocity sooner without losing anything. Furthermore, the entire Gnashing Fang string becomes a ~7.5 second 10% mit every 30 seconds, independently of when you decide to spend ammo for a Burst strike.

Since this change would give GNB that timing-based mitigation bonus, HoC would then be free to be changed to a flat mitigation... which is exactly why I suggested it in the first place. Besides, HoC having higher and higher mitigation numbers up front actively works against its Excog heal component, Catharsis of Corundum:

Suppose a hit is coming in for 70% of your MaxHP and you're at full health. If you prevent 30% of it, the net damage is 49%, bringing you to 51%, and your Catharsis will probably be wasted as you're healed to full. If you were to block 20% and 10% in my hypothetical, with multiplicative stacking your mitigation is effectively 28%, so the net damage is 50.4%, bringing you to 49.6%, triggering Catharsis. With my earlier numbers, Catharsis heals ~12k out of 72k (~16.7% of Max HP), so your HP lands at 66.3%. If you time the same hit poorly as HoC currently is, with 15% mit and Catharsis triggering you'd still end up at 57.2%. The 30% mitigation is actually the weakest of these three scenarios. Similar to TBN's problem with %mitigation, HoC's maximum benefit only happens when you're guaranteed Catharsis will trigger. In the edge case where you're below 50% HP so Catharsis will trigger automatically and the heavy hit will be reduced by 30%, you'd probably just use Bolide instead.

[NeoDivinity]

Suppose a hit is coming in for 70% of your MaxHP and you're at full health. If you prevent 30% of it, the net damage is 49%, bringing you to 51%, and your Catharsis will probably be wasted as you're healed to full. If you were to block 20% and 10% in my hypothetical, with multiplicative stacking your mitigation is effectively 28%, so the net damage is 50.4%, bringing you to 49.6%, triggering Catharsis. With my earlier numbers, Catharsis heals ~12k out of 72k (~16.7% of Max HP), so your HP lands at 66.3%. If you time the same hit poorly as HoC currently is, with 15% mit and Catharsis triggering you'd still end up at 57.2%. The 30% mitigation is actually the weakest of these three scenarios. Similar to TBN's problem with %mitigation, HoC's maximum benefit only happens when you're guaranteed Catharsis will trigger. In the edge case where you're below 50% HP so Catharsis will trigger automatically and the heavy hit will be reduced by 30%, you'd probably just use Bolide instead.

I agree upon some points buuut....
May sounds good taking your hypothesis as truth but TBs does hit not based on HP nor hit for only this low amount of damage to only take 70% of it, they hit waay higher, thats why you have to put in most scenarios a 30% or 20% mit on top of the HoC/Holy Shelt/TBN. Catharsis it is a neat resource but works as a backup for what i feel on the job's gameplay.
If youre talking about dungeons and normal trials then timing or not the new cd serves no purpose, just like the new Warrior oGCD AoE is only effective in dungeons and casual content, the new mechanic of timing the cds properly is only useful on savage/future ultimate contents.

Briging it from 15% 4secs to 20% 8 secs would make it super strong. you already get 100% of benefit from it Catharsis proccing or not, because you'll get that heal regardless if the times run out.
You also have to remember that not every time you'll have a 30% mitigation to put on top HoC, sometimes all you have is a 20% or even a reprisal. Also Off healers and team mates tends to also shield or mitigate TBs in some cases and Bolide will only be avaiable once or twice per encounter.

From all 3 tanks i dare to say that the only quick cd that is lacking some buffs is TBN wich does not provide any survivability at all and if it does not break you also lose damage, while Dark Mind can be useful this savage tier on most cases its just a useless cooldown that should've been reworked long time ago.

[Aegis_Harvey]

May sounds good taking your hypothesis as truth but TBs does hit not based on HP nor hit for only this low amount of damage to only take 70% of it, they hit waay higher, thats why you have to put in most scenarios a 30% or 20% mit on top of the HoC/Holy Shelt/TBN.

I'm sorry but you're misinterpreting my math. I'm not implying tank busters hit for a fixed percentage of a tanks' health, I'm implying they deal "a lot" of damage and I convert that to a percentage for the sake of keeping numbers that are reusable across item level tiers. Because of multiplicative stacking, there's also no difference between the way Corundum interacts with, say, a 70k damage hit alone, and the way it interacts with a 100k damage hit stacked with Nebula.

Briging it from 15% 4secs to 20% 8 secs would make it super strong. you already get 100% of benefit from it Catharsis proccing or not, because you'll get that heal regardless if the times run out.

This isn't what I'm saying either. My suggestion is 20% for 8 seconds, instead of 30%[27.75%] for the first 4 seconds and 15% for the remaining 4 seconds. My suggestion would be a nerf for big single hits and a small nerf for consistent damage. Currently Corundum averages to 22.5%[21.375%] mitigation across its duration. If you stack a flat 20% with the Continuation buff I suggested for big hits the new mitigation would be 28%, it ends up being a small buff if HoC stacks with itself multiplicatively and a small nerf if it self stacks additively. Their combination would also be a moderate buff to average mitigation. Catharsis has no benefit if it goes off while you're at or near full HP, to say regardless is just incorrect.

I don't think you or the previous replier understand that my suggestions work together to offload a little bit of defensive power from Corundum - which will still be very powerful compared to Intervention, TBN, and Oblation - and place it into the weaving that people are already doing that makes defensive options hard to pop in the first place. If you agree that's a problem GNB has then you're admitting Continuation is high priority, so why not add mitigation there? In other words, if people feel the continuation playstyle works against the goals of tanking, why not make it reward you with a tanky buff to balance the scale?

[Absurdity]

I don't think you or the previous replier understand that my suggestions work together to offload a little bit of defensive power from Corundum - which will still be very powerful compared to Intervention, TBN, and Oblation - and place it into the weaving that people are already doing that makes defensive options hard to pop in the first place. If you agree that's a problem GNB has then you're admitting Continuation is high priority, so why not add mitigation there? In other words, if people feel the continuation playstyle works against the goals of tanking, why not make it reward you with a tanky buff to balance the scale?

I do understand your suggestions, I just don't think they're very good.


Continuation usage is entirely fixed in your rotation and therefore unreliable for mitigation. I certainly wouldn't want to trade current HoC, as annoying as it might be to sometimes weave it, for a weaker version on savage busters (the only ones that actually matter) and an unreliable 10% mitigation from a skill that is about as flexible as a concrete wall.


On top of that these changes would also be a flat nerf to HoC as a support tool.