GNB Adjustments

[Ixon]

Ixon. Don't bother. I have seen your GNB suggestions since the beginning of Crystalline Conflict. I always respected your opinion about GNB and I can testify that you know what you are talking about. I learned to play GNB well but it still took a lot of time and I still propably perform similar to someone who just picked up one of the OP classes. And I still feel like I need to put more effort and time into playing GNB than anyone else.

I am pretty much one of the only GNB who is queuing in my data centre. I don't think Gserpent knows what he is talking about. And I am not really sure if he might just be trolling us.
Now after the No Mercy change i can finally hold my ground somewhat. And most of my playstyle is just "running away, attack, running away, attack" while all other tanks can stay on the crystal endlessly sometimes, because they are more durable than me.

Also as someone who plays on controller targetting especially "allies" isn't that easy. The only change i really want for GNB to feel "perfect" would be CC immunity on my LB. Then I got everything I need.

Thanks. I still think GNB is fine, it just lacks consistency. Cover is almost always good, same with TBN, same with a stun. The issue is while something like Nebula in Tank stance is good, it's only good when you are getting attacked. Healing stance is good, but only if your team can benefit from it. DPS stance is good, but only if you are being ignored. And a 30sec cooldown that is dependent on enemy(or potentially ally) team comps strips that flexibility away. Not to mention current DnJ gives a Powder Barrel for a Burst Strike, which is a damage increase if it replaces any part of your 1-2-3 combo. So you are either forced to use it on cooldown for the DPS, but lose out on what little flexibility you have. Or hold it to be flexible if able, but lose out on free damage. Hence why I would rather they just do away with it entirely and do something similar to the RDM black/white shift as I mentioned.

The other issue with them simply allowing to target self and allies is at minimum it would only allows you to go tank stance whenever you want. The other two stances would still be enemy and ally comp dependent, so you would still lose out on total flexibility just because you didn't get a Healer or DPS(in the rare occasion) in your match. I don't know if SE is willing to go that far to make GNB functional, or if they will just keep applying band aids to current DnJ.

[Gserpent]

Having to press 3 keys mid combat for a single desired effect, not to mention swapping focus from your main target at the time to target another just for this, is just not optimal. DnJ is an oGCD. With a Macro I can swap to who I want, when I want, even in the middle of a Gnashing Combo with minimal fear of clipping my GCD so I can maintain uptime and maintain damage on the enemy. I guarantee I can do faster with a macro than if I was doing it manually. It's why people use macros in the first place, across almost every job, with almost every player. It's faster and more accurate in specific situations.

It shouldn't take you more than a fraction of a second to make three inputs like that. If macros work for you, more power to you. But macros can't be buffered, while direct inputs can... which means I'm never going to use a macro when doing it manually works just as well.

The leaderboards don't matter. I don't know if you've actually played many games with the top 100's, but almost all of them aren't anything special. I've played with about 2/3 of the top 100 on Crystal (those that are on there consistently/maintain it) and I can't say any of them have really blown me away. None of them are bad. But people act like these people should have shit that don't stink and they're just... normal, average players.

I don't know what to tell you if you think a 10k heal with 3600 regen isn't top tier healing. Are you one of those people that thinks Aspected Benefic isn't broken halfway to hell, then? I mean, it's "only" 10k instant healing. Recuperate is "only" 15k instant healing... or 18k if you're a GNB. At what point does the instant healing stop being "weak" and start being recognized as "good"? It seems pretty arbitrary to me.

[Ixon]

It shouldn't take you more than a fraction of a second to make three inputs like that. If macros work for you, more power to you. But macros can't be buffered, while direct inputs can... which means I'm never going to use a macro when doing it manually works just as well.

The leaderboards don't matter. I don't know if you've actually played many games with the top 100's, but almost all of them aren't anything special. I've played with about 2/3 of the top 100 on Crystal (those that are on there consistently/maintain it) and I can't say any of them have really blown me away. None of them are bad. But people act like these people should have shit that don't stink and they're just... normal, average players.

I don't know what to tell you if you think a 10k heal with 3600 regen isn't top tier healing. Are you one of those people that thinks Aspected Benefic isn't broken halfway to hell, then? I mean, it's "only" 10k instant healing. Recuperate is "only" 15k instant healing... or 18k if you're a GNB. At what point does the instant healing stop being "weak" and start being recognized as "good"? It seems pretty arbitrary to me.

Still unsure if this is a troll or not, but I got time to kill so I'll bite.

There is a large list of reason why macros are better than manual input in certain situations. To the point where pretty much every single player uses them. If you don't use them, great, but the majority of PVPer's do, and have done so, since the Feast. So any additional change such as adding the ability to target teammates with DnJ that would only result in more macro's required for minimal gain is sub-optimal. Especially when there are work arounds like I have mentioned that will accomplish the same effect, but with much better results.

Healer stance on GNB is the worst stance, by far. Anyone who has spent any decent amount of time on GNB will tell you that. The 'less than a Recuperates' worth of single target healing plus the oGCD AoE healing that will miss most of your teammates half the time(especially since we are in a very ranged heavy meta) on top of having the worst damage output out of the three stances makes it the last choice you should pick outside of some very, very, specific circumstances. Aurora was nice back in Feast because you always had it. You were never sacrificing anything else for the ability to use it, and albeit in a vacuum on paper it's nice now. However, with the current state of GNB, you will have to go healer stance to gain access to it. And there is not enough reason to swap to healer stance JUST for Aurora.

Now let's say the devs answer my prayers and make DnJ similar to RDM black/white shift. Where at the press of a single button you can rotate between tank, healer, and DPS stance freely whenever you want. Would Aurora be "overpowered" then? I still say no. To me this would just increase the skill ceiling in a way that is both beneficial to the players enjoyment of the job, as well as said jobs functionality. It would make your choices every 20sec more meaningful, as when Junctioned Cast comes off cooldown, you would be able to decide in that moment which of the three abilities would be the best choice in a given situation between Nebula, Aurora, and Blasting Zone. If a player is able to be in tank stance, realize a teammate is in trouble, and in that instant swap to healer stance to give a life saving Aurora knowing full well that they will lose access to Nebula and Blasting Zone for 20sec, then swap back to tank stance so they don't die, all while maintaining uptime on an enemy, that doesn't seem overpowered to me. That just seems like fair and balanced job design with a high skill ceiling.

[Gserpent]

If a player is able to be in tank stance, realize a teammate is in trouble, and in that instant swap to healer stance to give a life saving Aurora knowing full well that they will lose access to Nebula and Blasting Zone for 20sec, then swap back to tank stance so they don't die, all while maintaining uptime on an enemy, that doesn't seem overpowered to me. That just seems like fair and balanced job design with a high skill ceiling.

I mean, like I said: if you like macros, that's fine. But you're complaining about needing extra keybinds when I'm literally giving you the solution to that problem. Barring physical disabilities or injuries or something, it really shouldn't be problematic to quickly execute a 3-input combo in well under a second if you've customized keybinds to where they're comfortable for your hands to access. Being able to execute things like that is pretty common to most games. I will absolutely grant you the problems it would cause console players, though.

As to the quoted bit? Yeah, sure... *if* they nerfed the benefits of being in each stance. Granted DPS stance isn't a huge deal (you're still basically a worse MNK), but GNB is far and away the tankiest tank in tank stance and if you think healer stance sucks... I don't know what to tell you? Maybe things are different on Aether, but there is no "ranged meta" on Crystal - if anything, with how broken MNK's capacity to click-delete casters is, you're likely to see as many melee as you do ranged, and it's quite common to see teams with 2-3 healers or tanks. Healer stance is *extremely* strong for any kind of sustain-focused lineup, which are quite common on Crystal. If you haven't seen it for yourself, then I'm not surprised you'd find healer to be lacking. It's 11k healing in a *15yd* AOE, and an extra 3600 healing whenever you choose to pop Hypervelocity, on a 15 second cycle. That's an *enormous* amount of team healing - it's more healing than WHM's Cure 3 proc every 20 sec (and that's including the Temperance healing bonus, mind you.)

If they make it so that GNB can access whatever abilities on demand, then they would necessarily have to re-evaluate the potency of those effects because they are currently balanced around you *not* having on-demand access to all of them.

[Ixon]

I mean, like I said: if you like macros, that's fine. But you're complaining about needing extra keybinds when I'm literally giving you the solution to that problem. Barring physical disabilities or injuries or something, it really shouldn't be problematic to quickly execute a 3-input combo in well under a second if you've customized keybinds to where they're comfortable for your hands to access. Being able to execute things like that is pretty common to most games. I will absolutely grant you the problems it would cause console players, though.

As to the quoted bit? Yeah, sure... *if* they nerfed the benefits of being in each stance. Granted DPS stance isn't a huge deal (you're still basically a worse MNK), but GNB is far and away the tankiest tank in tank stance and if you think healer stance sucks... I don't know what to tell you? Maybe things are different on Aether, but there is no "ranged meta" on Crystal - if anything, with how broken MNK's capacity to click-delete casters is, you're likely to see as many melee as you do ranged, and it's quite common to see teams with 2-3 healers or tanks. Healer stance is *extremely* strong for any kind of sustain-focused lineup, which are quite common on Crystal. If you haven't seen it for yourself, then I'm not surprised you'd find healer to be lacking. It's 11k healing in a *15yd* AOE, and an extra 3600 healing whenever you choose to pop Hypervelocity, on a 15 second cycle. That's an *enormous* amount of team healing - it's more healing than WHM's Cure 3 proc every 20 sec (and that's including the Temperance healing bonus, mind you.)

If they make it so that GNB can access whatever abilities on demand, then they would necessarily have to re-evaluate the potency of those effects because they are currently balanced around you *not* having on-demand access to all of them.

You are writing under situations that aren't guaranteed. Can GNB be a tanky tank? Sure, IF there is a Tank on the enemy team and IF you are able to execute your oGCD's for the shields, whilst PLD get's their mitigation and shield every time, all the time. Can GNB healing be good? Sure, IF there is an enemy healer, and IF you even have any melees on your team, and IF you can hit enough people with your oGCD's and IF you don't get focused down because you have less sustain in Healer stance than tank stance and IF your team can do enough damage to carry your lack there of. And if you are going healer stance just to support 1 MNK on your team, I think that's a bit of a throw. MNK's are pretty survivable as is, and a trickle of healing here and there whilst losing a large amount of damage and sustain is not worth. What is a 3600 oGCD to a 12k Flare? A drop in the the bucket, which is why it's an AoE heal, because while it's minimal on a single target, the more people you hit, the better.

And cool, you can theoretically heal more than a single Cure 3 proc every 20 sec while in GNB healer stance. So what? While a GNB in healer stance does a tiny bit more healing, the WHM is providing Protect with Seraph Strike, Miracle of Nature, Aqua veil, and Cure 2. See the issue? GNB Tank stance can ONLY stand up to another tank due to the sheer damage GNB can provide while being relatively tanky in place of the other tanks utility. GNB DPS stance can ONLY stand up to another DPS due to it's damage in place of it's utility and sustain. GNB Healer stance does not provide enough damage or healing to adequately stand up to the other healers. The very few situations where you can get the most benefit of being in healer stance, why not just go DPS stance and kill faster?

Not to mention all this is moot because GNB isn't even the best tank at the moment. At the very least, a change would bring it to the SAME LEVEL as PLD or WAR, where currently it sits below them. No one is putting GNB at S tier. Hell, most don't even put it at A tier. You say the board is whatever, but it does tell a story when you look at it. The most queued tank that you see climb the board at the moment is PLD, and I bet it's the same for most if not all the active boards in all the data centers. Here is what I can assure you, I have almost won more ranked games on GNB than you have total played ranked games. I have probably tried every stance in every comp in every situation. Does Healer stance have a place? Yes, but most of the time it does not. The healing that it can do(which can be easily out healed by most of the healers) does not make up for it's lack of CC, utility, and damage at this point in time, nor would that change even if they fixed DnJ jank.

[Gserpent]

Tier lists are a waste of time to discuss or create. I've never, ever seen a tier list that wasn't a bunch of transparently biased nonsense, for any game. Just a way for people to pull their pud in public and try to get others to comment on it.

I think you're making a big mistake by assuming that GNB has to "replace" a DPS, healer, or tank while in that junction. They aren't replacing anything. They're just tacking on that role's focus to their existing kit. In no way, shape, or form should adding on those benefits make them *better than* a member of that role. A GNB in healing stance should not be healing better than a healer, and they shouldn't be DPSing better than a DPS while in DPS stance. Tanking is fine because, well... it's a tank. I'm honestly not sold on the idea of keeping Draw and Junction at all. I'd rather they delete it, add Nebula, Blasting Zone, and Aurora as core kit pieces with a shared cooldown, and figure out something else for the Continuation skills to make them interesting (probably just add one of AOE healing, personal shield, and extra potency to one of each skill.)

If you keep Draw and Junction as it is, it will always be limited by what's available on the field. Which as you've said, is a problem. If you make it like Red Mage stances, you're just going to see people sitting in one stance 90% of the time and only ever touching the others to fire off a Nebula or Aurora before going back to DPS stance (because why would you stay in tank or heal stance when their activated cooldown is pretty much the actual reason to use them in the first place?)

As for healing stance being bad, maybe we just have to agree to disagree. Teams with 3+ healers-tanks are *very* common on Crystal and healer stance is *extremely* strong on those teams, because those teams are designed to outlast the other team and win via attrition, rather than trying to blow someone up. Adding 13k AOE healing on top of Aurora, to a team that's already going to be very heavy on healing and mitigation, is *very* potent and far better than a little bit of extra DPS or some personal shielding that is *probably* not necessary (either because you're getting DR from an ally or there is already a PLD on the team that can already handle the "pitch a tent on the crystal" role.)

I've noticed that, in general, people have trouble recognizing how powerful and effective attrition is in CC. I think it's because they usually remember getting burst down, but don't as often remember the time they died because they simply did not have enough mana to keep healing through sustained DPS and weren't allowed enough space to go sip an elixir - probably because that's a chain of events potentially 30 seconds long, while getting blown up is usually just a few seconds. I play mostly SCH and you'll hear people say SCH is weak... because they don't understand how fucking strong attrition is. That extra healing pulsing out to the team means they may not have to pop a heal. This allows them to be more aggressive, means they might not have to spend several seconds healing behind a wall and can continue fighting, etc when they would otherwise have to back off.

Yeah I'll agree that 13k to a single person isn't much. But 13k to most of your team? That's a *lot* of sustain, man.

[Ixon]

I think you're making a big mistake by assuming that GNB has to "replace" a DPS, healer, or tank while in that junction. They aren't replacing anything.

Except you are. When you are a GNB in DPS stance you are not a tank, you are not a healer, you are the most squishy DPS. The same works for all the other roles. Sure you can kinda be a tank in healer stance, but not as good as if you were in tank stance. A GNB in Healer stance doesn not have to be better than all the healers, it just has to be close to equivalent, which currently it is not, hence why it is lacking. Given the choice, no one would ever trade any of the 4 healers for a GNB in healer stance because the other healers do so much more much better than a GNB in healer stance can. Even with SGE's minimal healing, they still beat out a GNB in healer stance because SGE just does way more damage and their ult can be way more impactful.

I'm honestly not sold on the idea of keeping Draw and Junction at all. I'd rather they delete it, add Nebula, Blasting Zone, and Aurora as core kit pieces with a shared cooldown, and figure out something else for the Continuation skills to make them interesting (probably just add one of AOE healing, personal shield, and extra potency to one of each skill.)

I like DnJ, I want it to stay, I just want it to be less jank. And they cannot just add more buttons as GNB is already at the cap SE has set for PVP jobs.

you're just going to see people sitting in one stance 90% of the time

The same thing happened in Feast, and that was the skill ceiling that separated mediocre players from great players who knew when to swap DnJ targets at key moments for maximum effectiveness. In fact, just swapping DnJ to have the roles more easily accessible would automatically increase the ceiling as sometimes you don't even have the option to swap due to full DPS teams.

healer stance is *extremely* strong on those teams

Show me any GNB main, on any data center, who is top100 from healer stance. In fact, show many and GNB main in the top 30 on any data center, because I am 99% sure they do not exist as the job is not in the best state ESPECIALLY in the current meta. If it was *extremely* strong, I think you would see it more often. Go look at the community tournaments. No one is playing GNB, and if they do, they aren't winning. Trying to promote that a job is strong when it's not just hurts that jobs chances of actually getting meaningful buffs so that it can be in a playable state.

people have trouble recognizing how powerful and effective attrition is in CC

Attrition is only as strong as your team is in securing kills before your sustain runs out. If your team is incapable of securing any kills, or if the enemy has better team wiping LB's than your team, then sustain does not matter. Keeping your team alive for an extra 15sec is useless if your team cannot secure a kill. However, if instead you swapped to let's say DPS stance and finished off an enemy DPS purely because you were doing enough extra damage, then the DPS stance wins. Sustain CAN work, but you are solely reliant on your team to win the fight because your damage is so gimped while you *sustain* your team. This isn't even a "Over here on Crystal" thing. I've watched streams of games in Crystal, they are not different from Aether or anywhere else. You can sustain your team forever but if they are incapable of securing kills you are just wasting your time.

Even with all this, I still go healer stance when I feel the situation calls for it. Did it last night in a ranked Crystal tier game where it was overtime. I was able to keep myself and my team alive for a little longer, but because my team and I could not secure any kills, we just sustained until the enemy got their team wiping LB's up and wiped the floor with us. DnJ is jank, DPS stance is too squishy, and Healer stance is bad. Stop pretending that it's not when there are countless examples showing this to be true. Say it's bad, continue to say that it's bad, until they fix it. IF they ever turbo buff GNB to BLM levels I'll be in here asking for it's nerf, though I really doubt that will ever be the case.

[Gserpent]

Except you are. When you are a GNB in DPS stance you are not a tank, you are not a healer, you are the most squishy DPS. The same works for all the other roles. Sure you can kinda be a tank in healer stance, but not as good as if you were in tank stance. A GNB in Healer stance doesn not have to be better than all the healers, it just has to be close to equivalent, which currently it is not, hence why it is lacking. Given the choice, no one would ever trade any of the 4 healers for a GNB in healer stance because the other healers do so much more much better than a GNB in healer stance can. Even with SGE's minimal healing, they still beat out a GNB in healer stance because SGE just does way more damage and their ult can be way more impactful.

You are displaying a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of how CC works and how team selection would work, were we given the option to do so. So it's not surprising you have some... questionable takes elsewhere. I'm not sure there's any point in continuing further when you're making baseline, foundational mistakes here. Like, a GNB in healer junction still brings *vastly* more DPS than any other healer except SGE (who also happens to bring the least healing/support out of any of the healers, which is why they do so much more DPS) - if it could literally "replace a healer," *it would be overpowered.* GNB in DPS junction does *vastly* more DPS than any other tank and arguably does more DPS than most other melees (especially after the 20% bump to No Mercy) - if they were very tanky during this time, *it would be overpowered.*

You're inconsistent with what you want. If we made D&J just a stance you picked, it would have to be on the current cooldown - you'd need 3 different buttons with a shared cooldown, and they'd morph into their respective stance-skill on use. Otherwise you'd have GNB just quickly swapping between stances to use a specific stance-skill and then returning to another stance (probably DPS, because potency boosts + Nebula access would almost certainly be better than actually staying in tank stance in most scenarios) and they would make 6.11a BLM look like a joke in terms of how badly they'd break the game. But if we put a cooldown on it or otherwise make it so you can't smoothly swap between stances on the fly, you wouldn't get what you're asking for.

The problem is that what you're asking for is fundamentally overpowered. This is always the danger of people who "main" a single class and don't understand how to analyze games like this.

[Ixon]

Otherwise you'd have GNB just quickly swapping between stances to use a specific stance-skill and then returning to another stance (probably DPS, because potency boosts + Nebula access would almost certainly be better than actually staying in tank stance in most scenarios) and they would make 6.11a BLM look like a joke in terms of how badly they'd break the game.

I don't think we are playing the same game if this is your thought process. I'll say again, IF GNB is as strong as you make it to be, which it's not, but if it was, where are the results? Where are the hoards of GNB's dominating the boards or tournaments? Why do you play GNB if it's as strong as you say? GNB is still worse than WAR and specifically PLD right now. There is no question about it. A small buff to how DnJ functions would not break the game, it would at most, bring GNB up to the level that is currently occupied by WAR and PLD.

Not sure what you mean by inconsistent as I have been repeating the same thing over and over again. Take current DnJ, replace it with RDM Black/White shift but instead of going from black to white to black again, you go from Tank to Healer to DPS to Tank again. Each stance change would change Junctioned Cast to the respective Nebula, Aurora, or Blasting Zone associated with said stance, still on it's same 20sec cooldown. Yes, this would be an overall buff even if you completely removed the Powder Barrel charge you normally get from DnJ, by being able to swap to what you need on the fly. However, it would make the job more enjoyable, while also increasing the skill ceiling so that better players can shine. But that is fine because GNB is not great at the moment. It still needs a buff, and this is the buff it needs. It doesn't need more potency, it doesn't need crowd control, it needs DnJ to not be as jank as it is to not be a throw pick. I have over a thousand ranked games on GNB only to back up my reasoning, but as far as I know you are a SCH main? I really, really, want to see you go GNB right now into ranked, pick Healer stance every time you can, and show the results. Prove that it is overpowered and I will happily apologize and agree with you. But until then, it is my personal opinion that this is the best way forward.

[AtomicBomb]

I have a few ideas that I think could make Draw and Junction cool and interesting.

Option 1:

Decouple the cooldowns of Aurora, Nebula and Blasting Zone and then make the DnJ cooldown something like 5 seconds, so you can actively "stance dance" by cycling through the enemies. Potential for high skill play. It would suck of course if you're against an all DPS team so maybe allow DnJ usage on teammates or even...yourself?

Option 2:

Allow the usage of Nebula, Aurora, and Blasting Zone in all stances but in a weakened form in the "off" stances. So ie. the skills would look like:

Aurora: 8000 Potency heal
Junction Healer Bonus: 3000 potency regen for 12s.

Nebula: 20% damage reduction for 10s.
Junction Tank Bonus: 3000 potency counterattack.

Blasting Zone: 5000 potency
Junction DPS Bonus: +5000 potency.

Also the weakened versions could have increased cooldowns (maybe 40s?), and using DnJ on a target resets the cooldown for that stance's ability. This could create interesting some interesting possibilities.

Addendum:

Also, I think DnJ should apply a small permanent debuff on the target that lasts until DnJ is used on a different target. Something like:

Tanks: 5% increased damage taken.
Healers: 5% reduced healing potency.
DPS: 5% reduced damage dealt.

DnJ implies that the Gunbreaker is "stealing" its power from the target, which is how the pre-6.1 DnJ worked.