What are your thoughts on the Gunbreaker's new charge animation?

[Kaixern]

The really odd part about Gunbreaker gapcloser (for me at least, i don't main this class so take it with a grain of salt) may be the fact that it start to dash in such a "brutal" way in order to just full stop before the add/boss due to the fact that the gapcloser doesn't do damage, which makes the animation a bit weird.
But as i said i don't main the class, if the ability goes well with the class fantasy/gameplay of the gunbreaker fine by me, if not gunbreaker mains should talk about (it if they feel like it of course).

[Baxcel]

It really sucks they're removing the animation an damage from 2 classes(GNB and DRK) but leaving both damage and animation on the other two (Pally and WAR)

What makes it even worse is you see Living Shadow use the new gap closer during its set rotation.. meaning the skill that's basically a fancy dot is using an action and time to do a skill that dosnt add to its damage.. ill need to look again but it looked like they lost around 2-4seconds or 1-2 GCDs of damage on the skill for the new dash in..

Edit: just rewatched.. Living Shadow dosnt attack for 8 full seconds of its summon.. first attack it dose is Unmend and then the dash in.. stopping damage until 9seconds remain.. so over 50% of the skills duration is doing nothings and the new dash

[Mikey_R]

The really odd part about Gunbreaker gapcloser (for me at least, i don't main this class so take it with a grain of salt) may be the fact that it start to dash in such a "brutal" way in order to just full stop before the add/boss due to the fact that the gapcloser doesn't do damage, which makes the animation a bit weird.

I don't know if you mean Brutal as I don't get that impression at all. It is just a quick dash with effects to show the speed, that is all. It is the same sort of effect Monk has with Thunderclap.

It really sucks they're removing the animation an damage from 2 classes(GNB and DRK) but leaving both damage and animation on the other two (Pally and WAR)

What makes it even worse is you see Living Shadow use the new gap closer during its set rotation.. meaning the skill that's basically a fancy dot is using an action and time to do a skill that dosnt add to its damage.. ill need to look again but it looked like they lost around 2-4seconds or 1-2 GCDs of damage on the skill for the new dash in..

Edit: just rewatched.. Living Shadow dosnt attack for 8 full seconds of its summon.. first attack it dose is Unmend and then the dash in.. stopping damage until 9seconds remain.. so over 50% of the skills duration is doing nothings and the new dash

The only thing that has changed with Esteem is Plunge has been replaced with the dash and Carve ad Spit has been replaced with the new move. Duration is exactly the same, the same number of moves are used etc. Whilst yes, the dash is going to do no damage, it isn't taking up any more time than current Plunge.

We also don't know how much extra potency that last attack has. Normally, the attack's potency is 350, so it would need to do at least 700 potency to break even.

Also, just to nit pick, the first attack it does is Abyssal Drain.

[AlessaImpera]

I hope that means the old gapclosers are gone.
Weaving damage dealing gapclosers always made the rotations look ugly, janky and disconnected on Gunbreaker.
The overall cohesion of the animations always suffered greatly.
Having a gapcloser that's only used for closing distance would make it look so much better aesthetically.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I hope that means the old gapclosers are gone.
Weaving damage dealing gapclosers always made the rotations look ugly, janky and disconnected on Gunbreaker.
The overall cohesion of the animations always suffered greatly.
Having a gapcloser that's only used for closing distance would make it look so much better aesthetically.

Depends on where you weaved the cap closer in at, I typically weave my gap closer after Double Down and maybe at the end of Gnashing Fang, makes it look less janky. On a related note of weaving, and by extension, double weaving, oGCDS Sonic Break into Bow Shock into Blasting Zone looks the smoothest in my opinion.

And back to to gap closers as a whole; Dark Knight and Gunbreaker losing their damage dealing gap closers CAN and WILL negatively impact their overall DPS if Paladin and Warrior are keeping their damage dealing gap closers, more so with Dark Knight since Living Shadow DPS kinda needs the Plunge too exist do more damage if the devs REALLY WANT to keep Living Shadow, since Living Shadow is a glorified DoT that is somehow treated as a pet.

[Kaixern]

But i am so eager to see the great addition of enhanced living shadow trait 3 and....oh, it seems my sarcasm meter just imploded, my bad, will try my best to clean this up.
(joke aside, no matter my first impressions when looking at the animations, i am still eagerly waiting to try the gameplay loop for the tanks and seeing how it feels in the long run)

[Vallerie]

It really sucks they're removing the animation an damage from 2 classes(GNB and DRK) but leaving both damage and animation on the other two (Pally and WAR)

It's 99% because they wanted to free up weave space on DRK and GNB. PLD and WAR don't need it, because they both have total of like 6 weaves in burst, while DRK has somewhere between 12 and 15 currently, and GNB has I think 9-12 (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not that familiar with GNB). If they wanted to remove damage from WAR and PLD gap closers, they would need to introduce additional damage oGCDs because otherwise their burst would be extremely dry.
And honestly, I think it's good that some gap closers remain with damage. Broadly speaking, it's not a terrible idea.

What makes it even worse is you see Living Shadow use the new gap closer during its set rotation.. meaning the skill that's basically a fancy dot is using an action and time to do a skill that dosnt add to its damage.. ill need to look again but it looked like they lost around 2-4seconds or 1-2 GCDs of damage on the skill for the new dash in..

Edit: just rewatched.. Living Shadow dosnt attack for 8 full seconds of its summon.. first attack it dose is Unmend and then the dash in.. stopping damage until 9seconds remain.. so over 50% of the skills duration is doing nothings and the new dash

This is entirely up to potency balancing. Living Shadow hits don't do the same potency ours do, it has its own potency. It's trivial for them to redistribute that plunge potency to its other hits, or even let its own version of the gap closer to do damage.

[ShariusTC]

fine for me, not a fan of press dash to optimize damage in burst window, also when GNB released i feel using a LB from 8 for a dash was weird, rough divine can be add back in GNB tool later on with something more useful

PS: more to add animation of old rough divine has nothing to resemble FF8 at all, rough divine in FF8 is an uppercut and result in squall jump to the air

[Oizen]

It really sucks they're removing the animation an damage from 2 classes(GNB and DRK) but leaving both damage and animation on the other two (Pally and WAR)

What makes it even worse is you see Living Shadow use the new gap closer during its set rotation.. meaning the skill that's basically a fancy dot is using an action and time to do a skill that dosnt add to its damage.. ill need to look again but it looked like they lost around 2-4seconds or 1-2 GCDs of damage on the skill for the new dash in..

Edit: just rewatched.. Living Shadow dosnt attack for 8 full seconds of its summon.. first attack it dose is Unmend and then the dash in.. stopping damage until 9seconds remain.. so over 50% of the skills duration is doing nothings and the new dash

Thats how living shadow is now, and it spends so long on its ass I wouldn't be surpirsed if the no cost makes it part of the pre-pull or after the first gcd.

[mallleable]

Like yeah, having abilities that are designed to be exclusively used for movement is good. But there is just something kinda cool about doing a rush attack on an enemy so it feels like some fun was optimized out of the game. What I would like to see in the future is that the boring gap closers stay, but bring back Rough Divide as a skill used for damage in the same spirit that DRG jumps are attacks the move your character around, but are used exclusively for damage. I have similar feelings with DRK losing Plunge.