Mystic Knight

[Ehayte]

Ohh Kitru I really like the ideas you came up with in that last paragraph.

I don't care for the hostile undertones, but.... hehehe

Like I said, its hard to balance this idea without an practical test to see what's up, but I think you might be over and underestimating a few things:

Enmity:
- Flash is going to use 212 of roughly 3400mp, which is a 6% decrease in the mitigation your mana will provide you. That MP is replenished QUICKLY, or a flash spam could be used in concert with one of your MP regen abilities to get back up there.
- Concurrently, you won't NEED to flash spam unless you are in WP doing speed runs, as your enmity increase should be huge. Let's examine:
RoH Combo for PLD:
o Fast Blade = 150 potency = 150 Enmity
o Savage Blade = (210 potency x 3) = 630 Enmity
o Rage of Halone = (280 potency x 5) = 1400 Enmity
Total of 2180, or 726 per GCD
MB Combo for MYS:
o Fast Blade = 150x140% = 210
o Riot Blade = 210x140% = 294
o Mystic Blade = 240x5x140% = 1680
Total of 2184, or 728 per GCD

wwwhhhhhaaaaaaatttt!!!! While it might be 41% of the MYS's own RoH combo, its slightly over 100% of the PLD's RoH combo.

Also, think about this. RoH > RoH > RoH = 700 enmity per GCD, instant 700 enmity on each of 3 targets! MYS would be weak on snap AoE aggro, but ridiculously strong on single target aggro and single target tanking.

Mitigation - I'm not willing to do the math, and I honestly don't think its worth your time either, but I think you are overestimating the mitigation you get from your mana. Damage still goes through the MYS. Think about Titan, as everyone knows that fight. 4.5k MB, even if you are at full mana, will eat your 3.4k mana, and still do 1.1k of damage to you! Leaving you to scramble to get some mana back to mitigate the next attacks. If you had 1000 mana, it would allocate 30%ish of that damage to the mana pool, meaning 1300, i.e. it would mitigate 1000 dmg, leaving the MYS to eat 3500 dmg. The attacks TAKE your mana away...so the biggest shield you can accumulate against a large attack is your mana pool - if you look at the crazy hits in coil (unmitigated 8ks), the MYS is still gonna take 5kish of that (with a 3400 mana pool). Correct me if I am missing something huge here.

RE: Gear - Well...if you stack up PIE, you are going to lose vit and strength, so I fail to see a problem...and MYS armor, if it follows other tank armor, just wouldn't have it on it...Even if you can get your mana pool above your hp pool, hits will still eek into your hp pool, and you will die REAL quick on a serious of fast and hard hits with no chance for your healer to do anything about it.

RE: Mana Regen - I hardly thing 4%/tick is gonna break the game, lol.

RE: DPS Stance - Good point. I don't think that going from 120 to 138 dps is going to make or break a dungeon though... Seems silly to nit-pick that.

RE: CDs - Yes, Mystic Ground is stupid, but the text reads it goes UP to 170kish, and the rest of it was poor written and thought out. Dumb ability, not a good idea. I'm sorry : D And yeah, I guess I would just reduce Ramp/Sent, because I feel like if you leave those in there you are SUPER OP'ed. Some reduction to balance them out I think is necessary, so I re-thought removing them.

And again, this was mainly just for fun and for a basic idea : D, I still think it could be made about as viable as a WAR is right now (hehe), and managing a mana pool as a shield sounds very entertaining to me.

[Kitru]

MB Combo for MYS:
o Fast Blade = 150x140% = 210
o Riot Blade = 210x140% = 294
o Mystic Blade = 240x5x140% = 1680
Total of 2184, or 728 per GCD

Where are you getting the 1.4x modifier from? If you're factoring in the tank stance, you have to factor it in on both. Without that 1.4x modifier, you're ending up with 1560 enmity (150 + 210 + 1200) against 2050 (150 + 600 + 1300), or 76% (I got 41% on the original math because I missed the high enmity modifier on the finisher).

I think you are overestimating the mitigation you get from your mana.

It's not the mitigation that it provides. It's the effective hit points that it provides. You'd be trivializing any and all burst damage since you're adding an extra 3-4k to your eHP *without factoring in Piety*. Mean mitigation was just kind of wonky to get into because there's a lot of variables and stochastic incidences to account for. The math on eHP is relatively simple, but the math on the mean mitigation would just be nuts (and, honestly, I have a feeling that it would either be laughably low or outrageously high).

RE: Gear - Well...if you stack up PIE, you are going to lose vit and strength, so I fail to see a problem...and MYS armor, if it follows other tank armor, just wouldn't have it on it...Even if you can get your mana pool above your hp pool, hits will still eek into your hp pool, and you will die REAL quick on a serious of fast and hard hits with no chance for your healer to do anything about it.

Crafted gear and jewelry. Even if you expect them to wear Darklight and don't put *any* PIE on their AF2 gear, optimal comp would still have you getting 50+ Piety from jewelry. If there *isn't* any PIE on their gear as content progresses, their mitigation construct would fall *way* behind what it should since damage is increasing but you're leaving their mp at a static quantity.

RE: Mana Regen - I hardly thing 4%/tick is gonna break the game, lol.

That's 136 mp/3. Bloodthirst provides less than that *while it's active*.

RE: DPS Stance - Good point. I don't think that going from 120 to 138 dps is going to make or break a dungeon though... Seems silly to nit-pick that.

It's not for the dungeons. When you're in a party, you're going a tank so you'll need to be in tank stance. When you're solo, on the other hand, you're a damage dealer: solo WARs run outside of Defiance and solo PLD runs with Sword Oath. Plus, there's still the "offtank" thing.

managing a mana pool as a shield sounds very entertaining to me.

The problem is that mp is an action resource, not a survivability resource. If you *want* it to become a survivability resource, don't try to turn it into hp because it won't be remotely balanced. You *could* design it around regularly using off-GCD mp consuming abilities that increase your mitigation, so that, rather than having it turn into an hp-replacement, it instead becomes a managed resource that provides scaling mitigation.

[Ehayte]

Where are you getting the 1.4x modifier from?

I referenced a few times that Mystic would increase enmity generation well above what Shield Oath and Defiance do. So I picked 40% as that was discussed earlier in the thread. AKA I made it up, and I get to because I made up the class, and it was referenced in the OP.

It's not the mitigation that it provides. It's the effective hit points that it provides. You'd be trivializing any and all burst damage since you're adding an extra 3-4k to your eHP *without factoring in Piety*. Mean mitigation was just kind of wonky to get into because there's a lot of variables and stochastic incidences to account for. The math on eHP is relatively simple, but the math on the mean mitigation would just be nuts (and, honestly, I have a feeling that it would either be laughably low or outrageously high).

But with no Shield Oath, you are going to eat a full 5-6k Hood Swing, meaning you still eat 2k of that, and then the next hits are going to be brutally hard without you getting some of your mana back. It think that with this design, the dmg mitigation would be laughably low, and I think a mod that would take the damage associated to your mana pool and cut it in half might work a little better. This is certainly a complicated idea to implement, and one that I don't have the time or will to figure out - was just throwing out a fun idea : D

Crafted gear and jewelry. Even if you expect them to wear Darklight and don't put *any* PIE on their AF2 gear, optimal comp would still have you getting 50+ Piety from jewelry. If there *isn't* any PIE on their gear as content progresses, their mitigation construct would fall *way* behind what it should since damage is increasing but you're leaving their mp at a static quantity.

Good point on both. Jewelery melding would be a good point. But, I mean, the simple fix is to start putting PIE on MYS armor after ilvl 90, make the mana pool based on vit (not calced the same way as hp is), or put a cap on PIE. I know its more programming, but those would seem to be easy ways to get around it.

That's 136 mp/3. Bloodthirst provides less than that *while it's active*.

Yeah but you are constantly losing MP as you take damage. Like, all the time. I think 136/tick is negligible, even with a % reduction to the amount of MP lost per hit.

It's not for the dungeons. When you're in a party, you're going a tank so you'll need to be in tank stance. When you're solo, on the other hand, you're a damage dealer: solo WARs run outside of Defiance and solo PLD runs with Sword Oath. Plus, there's still the "offtank" thing.

OK, then I don't think 120 vs 138 is going to break solo game play...The solo game is easily achievable completed IN Defiance or IN Shield Oath, and you could certainly make an argument that its the same difference or easier, just slower.

The problem is that mp is an action resource, not a survivability resource. If you *want* it to become a survivability resource, don't try to turn it into hp because it won't be remotely balanced. You *could* design it around regularly using off-GCD mp consuming abilities that increase your mitigation, so that, rather than having it turn into an hp-replacement, it instead becomes a managed resource that provides scaling mitigation.

I don't see the difference, are you just saying its too hard to figure out where the balance would lie? Traditionally MP is an action resource, and if you are saying you can turn it into an MP mitigation tank with MP-consuming mitigation abilities, then MP is a survivability resource, its just indirect instead of direct, i.e. pro-active versus re-act.

[Kitru]

I referenced a few times that Mystic would increase enmity generation well above what Shield Oath and Defiance do. So I picked 40% as that was discussed earlier in the thread. AKA I made it up, and I get to because I made up the class, and it was referenced in the OP.

You said "increases enmity generation", which all tank stances have. You say nothing about improving it beyond the normal capabilities of the tank stances. On top of that, that's a really a cheap cop out for bad attack rotation design. If they're relying so heavily on their stance providing 40% more enmity than the existing tank stances, they're going to have terrible damage.

Good point on both. Jewelery melding would be a good point. But, I mean, the simple fix is to start putting PIE on MYS armor after ilvl 90, make the mana pool based on vit (not calced the same way as hp is), or put a cap on PIE. I know its more programming, but those would seem to be easy ways to get around it.

The first and second ides don't actually solve the problem previously mentioned: mp pools that are *way* too large because you're giving them a *hugely* oversized mana pool. The first also doesn't get remotely close to addressing the whole "my gear has 3 main stats because Piety is actually stronger than VIT for me and you only get 2". The last idea is just another "well, I don't want to have to think about it" solution. If it requires you to completely rework an existing baseline mechanic (like what stat influences mp or placing a cap on a stat), it's a bad idea.

I think 136/tick is negligible, even with a % reduction to the amount of MP lost per hit.

So you're just dismissing the equivalent of constant passive healing *way* in excess of what a PLD or WAR gets *even when using a self healing ability*?

OK, then I don't think 120 vs 138 is going to break solo game play...The solo game is easily achievable completed IN Defiance or IN Shield Oath, and you could certainly make an argument that its the same difference or easier, just slower.

It's not a question of solo gameplay. It's a question of quality of life and equivalence to existing classes. If your tank doesn't have the ability to match the other tanks in damage, enmity, and OT damage, you're not creating a balanced construct. Dismissing it just because you want to say that it's a weakness is, once again, ignoring a problem just because you don't want to have to deal with it.

I don't see the difference, are you just saying its too hard to figure out where the balance would lie? Traditionally MP is an action resource, and if you are saying you can turn it into an MP mitigation tank with MP-consuming mitigation abilities, then MP is a survivability resource, its just indirect instead of direct, i.e. pro-active versus re-act.

I'm saying that *from a fundamental mechanical standpoint* mp is an action resource. They way that it behaves is *completely* different from the way that mitigation and tank stats behave; it's only *tangentially* similar to hp and gets modified in a dramatically different way. It doesn't scale the same way as a mitigation does. You simply *can't* have mp act as an augment to your hp bar without it being completely borked: you're overinflating eHP to an *insane* level and it would be laughably OP in low damage scenarios while insanely weak in high damage scenarios.

Using MP as a resource to *fuel* your mitigation is not a difference between proactive and reactive. MP as a resource to fuel mitigation means that you're using MP in the way that it actually *works*: spend mp to get a mitigation buff instead of "my mp is like my hit points", which is what you're doing here.

[Ehayte]

Snip

Phew...
1 - In my second post I mention the adjustments I referenced above.
2 - What about my suggestion to base the MYS's mana pool on VIT?
3 - Its not healing, its shielding, and its only partially effective as hit points.
4 - I differ in schools of thought from you. I come from older MMO where different classes of the same role had different things going for them, and all was good and happy in the world. Being equivilent to another class doesn't be being homogenous in the end result of each aspect. I think balance is ALL aspects of a job vs ALL aspects of another job, not DMG=DMG, eHP=eHP, Mitigation=Mitigation, Enmity=Enmity.
5 - eHP of a MYS would fluctuate throughout a battle. Full hp/Full MP its crazy high, with no MP its crazy low, it would just be about creating abilities that allow you to control it - I feel like a GLD-based MYS with mitigation abilities fueled by MP would feel too much like a PLD.