Suggestion for NIN ability Huraijin

[Deo14]

Why remove when you could just... make them not terrible? DRK is pretty iconically interested in its busy, bursty opener, and has always been the oGCD-heavy tank since its inception. Simplifying its opener by 5 casts is... not great, especially if you're truly interested in consolidation "without destroying the job".

I understand my own hypocrisy, but the thing is, that is seems like that many people agree that DRK is badly designed. My philosophy is don't fix what isn't broken (aka revert that 6.1 SAM bullshit, who tf approved that). Veterans miss the HW DRK, and current players label DRK as Walmart WAR and similar, so I do think that some rework is warranted there.

Take Refulgent Arrow, for example. At present, it's "optimization" is as little as just swiping your finger across the key for Refulgent to the key for Burst Shot. If RA's available, it'll be used; if not, BS will be. So, we may as well remove it, right, since we can't actually do anything extra with that button? ...Orrr, we could just actually let it be banked with a second charge, and give BRD further means of exploiting GCD burst.

Sound idea.

Let Carve fill either of two purposes, generating up to 3k MP or spending up to 3k MP based on one's current %MP while dealing more damage the less MP it generates / more it spends; pair that with something like Dark Arts and it'd have utility, too. As for Shadowbringer, just give DRK some manner of nuance-capable damage amp window, into/with which any big burst damage cannot help but synergize.

Problem with Carve, Shadowbringer and other damaging oGCDs, is that they're always used on CD, so I don't think there is much space for creativity. Your ideas will add little more depth, but that's about it. At best, it will make order of oGCD more relevant, instead of current optimal order, which realistically doesn't need to be used. Just double weave all your oGCDs and use that same order in next burst and you'll be fine.

The bloat affecting tanks is primarily the athematic garbage of the Role Actions. Shirk is pointless, as it's been since Stormblood. Reprisal is insignificant. Rampart looks like crap and its value would be better given over to a second charge, some cooldown reduction, and a further effect on each of the tank's mid-CD defensives. Even Tank Stance could easily be removed without loss, by just manipulating tank enmity in a few ways (modest flat multiplier, on engage multiplier, and a hefty enmity-theft multiplier that depends on positioning).

10% mit is significant. It adds more depth to the jobs because you it rewards specific fight knowledge, just like every mitigation. Rampart does look like crap, problem is that it has 1 animation for 4 tanks, all with very different aesthetics. If we keep current aggro mechanic, we should keep tank stance. Sure you could just make it passive for tanks, but now you're fighting for aggro. Generating more enmity depending on positional might make sense - if tank is in front, you get more. What about wall bosses though? Tank stance is super simple yet fully functional in current system.

This pretty clearly means a conditional Dash on whichever among Fleeting or Forked Raijuu survives. The downside is that you then would have to wait until being knocked back out of that minimum range in order to cancel a knockback with the dash. Granted, Shukuchi is available frequently enough to make that pretty well a non-issue.

This sounds like possible nightmare depending on implementation. If you're at 1yalm away, will the dash trigger? Probably not. If you're far away, will it dash you right at the hitbox? It should, just like every gap closer does. What if you're at max melee? Quite a few AoEs can be dodged if you're at max melee. So if you're at 2.9y, it probably shouldn't trigger, right? What if you misstep and now you're out of the max melee range? Now it dashes you right into incoming AoE. If it did dash you only to max melee range, than it would break consistency with every gap closer in the game. What about all the possible server shenanigans? This has serious potential to behave the way player didn't want. Consolidating buttons should be done for convenience, if it makes sense. But if you try too hard to put every button on some other, you can end up in situations where it might be seem unnatural and confusing. Someone here suggested to put Raijus on Aeolian Edge and Armor crush. It makes sense, since you don't use those button when you have Raiju ready, but does it make sense that regular GCD turns into Raiju? If we needed to remove one Raiju, just remove the one with gap closer and don't overcomplicate things, NIN has Shukuchi anyways.

[Shurrikhan]

Problem with Carve, Shadowbringer and other damaging oGCDs, is that they're always used on CD, so I don't think there is much space for creativity.

I don't think this is as strong a limit as you suggest. You just have to move it from a single, rhythmic point of optimization to a priority conflict:

Frequency is good, but the actual goal is potency per fight (assuming as short a fight as your party is capable of, of course). Create another means besides "use as often/quickly as possible" by which to generate more potency within the span of the fight and its being used on CD can help situate depth instead.

And that doesn't even have to be contextual, such as via Ravana-esque damage windows or add spawns to favor banking AoEs. It can instead come from the job itself.

10% mit is significant. It adds more depth to the jobs because you it rewards specific fight knowledge, just like every mitigation.

And what did that 10% miti from Reprisal, shared across all tank jobs, replace? The 10% mitigation unique to each kit and which did not require a separate button for that purpose.

There are more than enough buttons that can more choicefully take up that %mitigation duration*intensity per minute, be that the likes of Intervene & Circle of Scorn, Oblation, Burst Strike & Fated Circle, or WAR's gauge spenders and/or some external element added to Infuriate or Thrill of Battle, etc., offering a higher ceiling and more interactive and varied skill use than just hitting Reprisal on CD or by the boss-script-schedule, all without that button cost.

Generating more enmity depending on positional might make sense - if tank is in front, you get more. What about wall bosses though? Tank stance is super simple yet fully functional in current system.

Omnidirectional enemies still technically have a front, flank, and rear; they just guarantee positional bonuses regardless. There's no need to have it to the same for an Enmity trait, though. And so long as Provoke still exists, it'd make no difference anyways.

This sounds like possible nightmare depending on implementation. If you're at 1yalm away, will the dash trigger? Probably not. If you're far away, will it dash you right at the hitbox? It should, just like every gap closer does. What if you're at max melee? Quite a few AoEs can be dodged if you're at max melee. So if you're at 2.9y, it probably shouldn't trigger, right? What if you misstep and now you're out of the max melee range? Now it dashes you right into incoming AoE. If it did dash you only to max melee range, than it would break consistency with every gap closer in the game. What about all the possible server shenanigans? This has serious potential to behave the way player didn't want. Consolidating buttons should be done for convenience, if it makes sense. But if you try too hard to put every button on some other, you can end up in situations where it might be seem unnatural and confusing. Someone here suggested to put Raijus on Aeolian Edge and Armor crush. It makes sense, since you don't use those button when you have Raiju ready, but does it make sense that regular GCD turns into Raiju? If we needed to remove one Raiju, just remove the one with gap closer and don't overcomplicate things, NIN has Shukuchi anyways.

No, it's really stupidly simple.

Can the non-dash skill reach? Yes = Non-dash skill is used. No = The dash skill is used instead.

I.e., slap them together in a macro (in any game where macros haven't been purposely sabotaged to keep them from queuing and where failed lines proceed to the next), non-dash before dash. Done.

[Deo14]

And what did that 10% miti from Reprisal, shared across all tank jobs, replace? The 10% mitigation unique to each kit and which did not require a separate button for that purpose.

There are more than enough buttons that can more choicefully take up that %mitigation duration*intensity per minute, be that the likes of Intervene & Circle of Scorn, Oblation, Burst Strike & Fated Circle, or WAR's gauge spenders and/or some external element added to Infuriate or Thrill of Battle, etc., offering a higher ceiling and more interactive and varied skill use than just hitting Reprisal on CD or by the boss-script-schedule, all without that button cost.

I'm really struggling to understand what are you trying to say here. Put reprisal effect on Intervene/Circle of Scorn or similar? If that is what you mean, then no, putting MIT on skill which is part of your rotation makes no sense.

But anyways, reprisal is better than having no reprisal, I really don't think that tanks having some 5 self mits and 2.5 group mits is far fetched, could honestly be more. You could consolidate it with Divine Veil and others, but meh, that's lame, just keep it as it is. If it was on one button, you would use it less frequently and kill the creativity. Divine Veil is at 90s, Reprisal at 60s, so you can use them both at the same time, or space them out and similar. They are better designed than regular damaging oGCDs, because they are pro active, and not just some part of you rotation that you use on CD.

Omnidirectional enemies still technically have a front, flank, and rear; they just guarantee positional bonuses regardless. There's no need to have it to the same for an Enmity trait, though. And so long as Provoke still exists, it'd make no difference anyways.

So offtank should just stay in one of the front corners, so he doesn't take aggro from wall boss? And no, Provoke won't help it. Provoke merely places you on top of enmity list and gives you a little extra enmity. If tank stance was a trait, and OT had better gear, he will keep overtaking aggro before MT's provoke even cools down. You're really overcomplicating things with this.

No, it's really stupidly simple.

Can the non-dash skill reach? Yes = Non-dash skill is used. No = The dash skill is used instead.

I.e., slap them together in a macro (in any game where macros haven't been purposely sabotaged to keep them from queuing and where failed lines proceed to the next), non-dash before dash. Done.

As I pointed out before, this has serious pitfalls. In the end, it's computer which decides whether you will use dash or not, and this barely ever ends well. Player will not always agree with computer, and 99% reliability is just not enough for these things. Just like in the example I gave you with the max melee situation, where your small misstep makes computer decide that you will dash, which will get you killed. Sprinkle in some terrible netcode and you have a recipe for disaster. Just like with tank stance, you're overcomplicating the most simple of things.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm really struggling to understand what are you trying to say here. Put reprisal effect on Intervene/Circle of Scorn or similar? If that is what you mean, then no, putting MIT on skill which is part of your rotation makes no sense.

Making Intervene/Circle of Scorn be more than just X potency per second used on cooldown.

One is literally called Intervene and has repositioning opportunities that would synergize well with a trait allowing you to automatically transfer to you a portion of damage taken by those behind you, etc. Instead, it just... deals damage.
The other summons a ring of aetherial swords all to... deal damage. Just damage.

Why leave PLD with 4 "just deals damage; hit as soon as it'd otherwise waste cooling time" oGCDs just to siphon what thematic opportunity they'd otherwise have... over to a role-wide athematic skill that's barely noticeable?

You've got a ton of skills that could offer mitigation in more job-synergetic ways. Why favor a separate, shared Reprisal skill over just vitalizing what's actually unique to each job?

They are better designed than regular damaging oGCDs, because they are pro active, and not just some part of you rotation that you use on CD.

You've limited mitigation capacity available to tanks before they become far stronger in that regard than intended.

Again, do you wish to spend the portion in question...

A. ...in ways unique to each tank that could increase the average thoughtfulness/nuance of their kit's actions, or

B. ...on Role Actions, identical across every tank?

And no, Provoke won't help it. Provoke merely places you on top of enmity list and gives you a little extra enmity.

It's an Enmity-grabbing tool; you can assign to it whatever other functionality serves to that end. If that means also causing the enemy Provoked to take greatly increased Enmity from the player who afflicted it, lasting until overridden, so be it. At least Provoke has further functions available to it than just a toggle that, at most, you wait a bit before toggling on.

Just get what you need from Provoke itself and there's no need for Shirk, Royal Guard, Defiance, Shield Oath, or Grit. The only remaining "skill-gap" thereafter of "Did my tank remember to turn on his stance before running in?" isn't worth a button.

As I pointed out before, [having the skip not dash if it doesn't need to dash in order to reach] has serious pitfalls.

It already works just fine. See *cough* third-party tools *cough*. Yes, even under 250-300 ms ping and packet loss.

But, again, I'd just have Forked and Fleeting temporarily replace Aeolian Edge and Armor Crush since we're literally unable to continue our combos without wasting Raijuu Ready anyways.

[Deo14]

Making Intervene/Circle of Scorn be more than just X potency per second used on cooldown.

One is literally called Intervene and has repositioning opportunities that would synergize well with a trait allowing you to automatically transfer to you a portion of damage taken by those behind you, etc. Instead, it just... deals damage.
The other summons a ring of aetherial swords all to... deal damage. Just damage.

But both Intervene/Circle of Scorn is used on CD because there is damage tied to it. You wouldn't actively mitigate anything, if you did, that was a mere coincidence. What if you needed to mitigate damage which comes at X:25 ? You already used all your oGCDs, because damage outweights any mitigation or heal. Which is why old tank stances were removed. If you have X choices, there will be one with most damage, and that choice will be used 99% of the time.

As for paladin's specific Intervene, which would protect the ones behind you - what if you're MT? Community will delegate PLD to OT once again because of this simple thing. I really don't miss the artificial separation to MT/OT jobs in ShB. Problem for gap closers isn't that it is just damage, problem is that there is damage attached to it at all. You barely used them for their real purpose, you just use them as yet another damaging oGCDs, if you slapped MIT on them, nothing would change.

Why leave PLD with 4 "just deals damage; hit as soon as it'd otherwise waste cooling time" oGCDs just to siphon what thematic opportunity they'd otherwise have... over to a role-wide athematic skill that's barely noticeable?

You've got a ton of skills that could offer mitigation in more job-synergetic ways. Why favor a separate, shared Reprisal skill over just vitalizing what's actually unique to each job?

Again, you cannot merge MIT with damage. Skill will always be used for damage only, with MIT as a mere side effect.

You've limited mitigation capacity available to tanks before they become far stronger in that regard than intended.

Again, do you wish to spend the portion in question...

A. ...in ways unique to each tank that could increase the average thoughtfulness/nuance of their kit's actions, or

B. ...on Role Actions, identical across every tank?

This is when the homogenization comes in. Sure, generally that's the bad thing, but in tanks' case, it's the lesser evil. Dark Mind is pretty unique, but it can be coin flip depending whether tank buster deals magical or physical damage. PLD used to be treated as OT in ShB, since he didn't have self healing like WAR and had one MIT less. DRK has less self sustain than others and people are not happy about it. When DRK dealt more damage because of this lack of self sustain, people were not happy about it either. Giving each tank different flavour is good, but your suggestion of PLD protecting people behind him will delegate him to OT spot. Atleast you can flash people with PoA if you're MT, you couldn't do that with Intervene.

It's an Enmity-grabbing tool; you can assign to it whatever other functionality serves to that end. If that means also causing the enemy Provoked to take greatly increased Enmity from the player who afflicted it, lasting until overridden, so be it. At least Provoke has further functions available to it than just a toggle that, at most, you wait a bit before toggling on.

Just get what you need from Provoke itself and there's no need for Shirk, Royal Guard, Defiance, Shield Oath, or Grit. The only remaining "skill-gap" thereafter of "Did my tank remember to turn on his stance before running in?" isn't worth a button.

Couldn't same changes be applied to tank stance? If you turn it off, enmity you accumulated is split in half. Or it just has current Provoke effect of being on top of enmity no matter what, unless there is other tank stance. Shirk is relevant, it's good practice to use it at tank swap, and it's useful for alliance raids too. Since you can't see how much aggro other tanks have, you can just shirk your teammates if you accidentally rip aggro. Sure, you can just dance with your stance to prevent it, but you still can't do it reliably.

I remember when I once ripped aggro in NieR raids. I played WAR as OT, popped stance after my burst as you should, just to rip it minute later. MT just seemed to have garbage damage, whatever, shirk my teammate and MT had aggro back. But the plot twist? Next boss I realized I was using unfinished HW relic the whole time. So yes, stance dancing is unreliable if you can't see specific values of enmity of other tanks. For real, aggro has been reduced to 3 buttons, it's fine as it is, no need to reduce it even further.

[Shurrikhan]

But both Intervene/Circle of Scorn is used on CD because there is damage tied to it. You wouldn't actively mitigate anything, if you did, that was a mere coincidence. What if you needed to mitigate damage which comes at X:25 ? You already used all your oGCDs, because damage outweighs any mitigation or heal. Which is why old tank stances were removed. If you have X choices, there will be one with most damage, and that choice will be used 99% of the time.

Consider old gap-closers or stuns. They were damage CDs and yet they were held whenever the rDPS of their situational value exceeded the additional effective potency from not thereby delaying them. That in itself adds to skill ceiling.

Old tank stances, moreover, weren't removed simply because they were damage-inferior. They were, in fact, rDPS-superior... up to a point. The problem was that it cost 3 additional buttons just to support a mini-game of "How closely can I guess how high the next-highest Enmity will go?" Since Enmity had no other mechanics to it besides an infinitely lasting number table... it added very little depth for its button cost.

The question to me is simply why we still have half the original button count (our of the likes of Shirk, Provoke, Tank Stance, Savage Blade, Rage of Halone, and Flash)... when we only need the one. A single active threat-grab action is in itself enough to cover all our Enmity needs (even while still allowing for the occasional oddball case like no-healing dungeons on the back of rotated Melees' Bloodbath durations).

Again, you cannot merge MIT with damage.

You absolutely can. It just takes not sanding down the brains of every tank and letting tanking actually be a more engaging process of risk and reward --largely for being able to actually make exactly those kinds of decisions-- as it has been in other MMOs.

This is when the homogenization comes in. Sure, generally that's the bad thing, but in tanks' case, it's the lesser evil.

Homogeneity via Role Actions is the lesser evil compared to... what, exactly? To take your Dark Mind example, how are we forgetting that DRK originally also had the best defensive against mass-physical attackers via DA-Dark Dance, opposite Dark Mind?

PLD used to be treated as OT in ShB

PLD was incentivized by a then comparatively-very-strong Intervention to use its own defensives, then Intervene in the last second of those durations stacked to time out at the same time, providing absurd mitigation to their cotank. That it wasn't typically MT had far more to do with the finnickyness of TBN at higher gear making it easier to pop when able to track autos from being hit by then and by WAR's then absurd self-healing via Nascent Flash.

For real, aggro has been reduced to 3 buttons, it's fine as it is, no need to reduce it even further.

Because why use 3 buttons on what can literally be solved equally well --and more intuitively, and with more opportunities for fine manipulation-- with one button and simply accordant traits?

Don't want aggro, and there's another tank tanking at present? Just don't hit constantly from the front.
Want aggro despite having far less DPS than your cotank? Use Provoke (which, as above, would grant a spike of Enmity immediately and increase your %enmity on the target until overridden by your co-tank's Provoke).

That's it. It only takes the one button.

Honestly, it would be cool if you could do Provoke/Reprisal effects through more Job specific stuff.

I didn't bother with unique Provoke versions here, as they aren't necessary to doing everything Tank Stance + Provoke + Shirk together can do, but you absolutely could again have a unique, say...

• Challenge (WAR - AoE taunt around self, target, and in a wide line between),
• Guardian (PLD - can be used on an ally to taunt its every attacker),
• Blade Shift (GNB - second charge, faster cooldown, and can target an ally to generate bonus threat against its attackers, or whatnot), and
• Dark Call (DRK - can be used from Shadowskin or Living Shadow to hold an enemy in place),
• etc.

I can't imagine you'd really feel those differences short of a Savage Dungeon, though.
Any bonus to a voke is pretty irrelevant when there's only the one enemy... as per... virtually all of XIV's serious content.

Shield Bash should be a big fat enmity generator, for example, instead of a button you only use for two levels until you get Low Blow and/or in PotD.

I mean, if anything, I'd probably turn Shield Bash into an core skill opposite Atonement and procced oGCD casts of Clemency, where it can pack a massive suppressive wallop, since I don't imagine needing any Enmity tool beyond Provoke, but if we wanted to actually turn Enmity into a mechanic beyond an effort in contracting (guessing the real Enmity cost and pocketing the remainder as bonus damage)... then sure, shield skills would be a thematically appropriate place for that.

I'm... pretty mixed on that endeavor (revitalizing Enmity as a mechanic) unless it really goes whole hog, though, and I just can't see any room for interestingly leveraging that within XIV's boss designs, though.

Bunshin/Bhavacakra (you always want to use Bunshin first; have Phantom overwrite Throwing Dagger while in effect, since you never want to use Throwing Dagger if you have a Phantom Kamatachi available anyway)

Honestly... that sounds like a job for de-neutered macros, not forced consolidation. And I would personally much prefer that there was no reason to consolidate them. One has a minimum TTK to pay off; the other does not.

Just leave Bunshin its own thing, with PK replacing Bunshin. Let players consolidate them if they want, but that's it.

Bunshin/Bhavacakra? How will you track CD of Bunshin?

So that issue's actually pretty easily solved as long as the devs care to catch up with 2016 plugins or so. You just place the [excess] charging wheel (not the cooldown wheel, which greys things out completely) over Bhavacakra while Bunshin is on CD.

Again, though, I don't think these two should be consolidated, but there are other abilities where one should actually always be used before the other. (Those, too, I'd prefer to see opened to nuance, rather than consolidated, but the tech is worth adding to the game either way.)

More shield actions would be great though, more in character than all the PLD's stab attacks.

Agreed. The whole originally hinted at Shield Oath | Sword Oath aspect of Paladin looked like it could have a ton of fun promise under the Knights of the Round... only to completely drop the thematic opportunity. >.>

[Deo14]

Consider old gap-closers or stuns. They were damage CDs and yet they were held whenever the rDPS of their situational value exceeded the additional effective potency from not thereby delaying them. That in itself adds to skill ceiling.

This is no longer a thing since everything atuomatically aligns in this 2 minute meta. Now you hold your CDs only if you drifted too much.

You absolutely can. It just takes not sanding down the brains of every tank and letting tanking actually be a more engaging process of risk and reward --largely for being able to actually make exactly those kinds of decisions-- as it has been in other MMOs.

You only need these decisions in ultimates and possibly week 1 Savage. Everywhere else, you would use it as damage first, mitigations second. One possibility to make this works is if it had stacks and wasn't affected by raidbuffs. You could similarly disconnect gap closers from raidbuffs and now you can save 1 stack to use as an actual gap closer. Problem is that this individual treatment is just as bad as guaranteed crits.

Homogeneity via Role Actions is the lesser evil compared to... what, exactly? To take your Dark Mind example, how are we forgetting that DRK originally also had the best defensive against mass-physical attackers via DA-Dark Dance, opposite Dark Mind?

Compared to specific jobs being delegated to either OT or MT merely because this or that skill is better suited for OT/MT.

PLD was incentivized by a then comparatively-very-strong Intervention to use its own defensives, then Intervene in the last second of those durations stacked to time out at the same time, providing absurd mitigation to their cotank. That it wasn't typically MT had far more to do with the finnickyness of TBN at higher gear making it easier to pop when able to track autos from being hit by then and by WAR's then absurd self-healing via Nascent Flash.

Yes, this is example of PLD bringing something more unique to a table and being punished for it (unless you prefer jobs being split to MT/OT, of course), while other tanks had more reasons to be MTs. Would be nice if every tank could be more unique, but tanking was already minimized to current state. PLD had 1 MIT less before rework and healers needed to pay him extra attention in DSR as a result. DRK was seen as someone who doesn't really bring much, so he used to have highest damage for a long time to offset this. But merely because he had few percent more damage, he was much more popular. Only thing left to do is to give everything slightly different flavour.

Sure you could give PLD a combat ress, but SE is currently clearly confused how this should affect DPS. Tanks shouldn't have big damage difference, most of TOP clears were with DRK simply because he had highest DPS. But at the same time, if they bring something good, like self sustain, they should have lower damage, right? But by how much? What about the ress, it's good for prog, useless for anything else, how do you calculate that? People are currently pretty unhappy about the way this stuff is handled. WAR seems like an all-rounder with no drawback, RDM is just in terrible state and SMN is treated like a caster even though he has less hard casts than a SAM.

So yes, in ideal game, we would have more uniqueness, but jobs are already homogenized and yet devs still cannot find the right balance.