Balance analysis of 2.1 WAR proposed changes

[Gamemako]

This ignores the fact that the WAR is using IB on every burst damage rather than using it continually on CD.

That was accounted. Bear in mind that PLD also gets greater mileage out of its cooldowns: Rampart hits 1/3 of bursts where it covers 2/9 of total time, Sentinel gets 1/6 bursts where it covers 1/18 of total time, etc. You are also comparing an autoattack-mitigation picture which includes all flat self-healing already. Without that flat healing, WAR would actually be a bit behind PLD -- WAR simply has weaker scaled mitigation over time. In the additional burst scenarios, that healing has already been counted. You can only count the scaled effects on those additional burst attacks, and because all of it is scaled, the exact amount of damage is not relevant; the burst reduction ratio will be true for all 30s-interval attacks within a 15-minute window. Even with that sort of burst schedule, the two just aren't seeing much difference in total mitigation. Another way of looking at the problem is that while WAR sees greater benefit than normal from the attacks, it still effectively moves you upwards in total damage rate -- the additional utility just help close the additional gap that would have otherwise emerged.

That said, I will generally agree with your assessment. I believe that WAR will be preferred for Twintania and Titan not because of total mitigation but because of eHP. PLD isn't technically harder on healers' MP pool, but WAR would give the party more breathing room in long encounters with reliable burst mechanics. PLD can make up some of the difference with Stoneskin, but it's simply not going to compare to WAR's superior eHP extension.

Gamemako, Have you compared the old inner beast to the new?

Not yet. Shouldn't be too complicated though, so I'll do it now. Old Inner Beast can push 1600 healed per shot at the top end (ilvl90 gear and strength build). To be equal between the buffed and the current versions, you would need to reduce out 1067 damage. That means the enemy would need to deliver 5333 damage over 6 seconds, which many opponents will do pretty reliably. My low-heal condition for this and my previous thread were 1133 healed from Inner Beast, or DL+Garuda setup. That would be an equivalent of 3778 over 6 seconds, which is less than many opponents deliver in a single hit, and if you were to remove the occasionally-dodgy inclusion of Storm's Eye, it's only 3400 for equivalence, or 567 incoming DPS. So is it a buff? Well, yes, but a small one. So yeah, the change isn't too much of a buff on the mitigation side, but it does reverse the gear scaling problem.

As I said in my previous balance thread, though, Inner Beast was never really the problem so much as Wrath and eHP. My guess is that the dev team decided that instead of giving a large passive HP to take advantage of Inner Beast, they would rather make the ability an eHP extension.

//EDIT: Maybe it would be better to think of it this way. Previously, you could drop 5500 in healing per minute from IB, roughly. Now, you'd get back 1833 from healing, plus 18 DPS-seconds at 500 DPS for 2250, plus 20% of two Death Sentences -- 1000-1200 each. That would put you at 6100-6500 or so neglecting the impact of other abilities, which comparably reduce the value of your defenses. Vengeance, for example, would take out 30% one way or the other, so you'd get 30% less from that one IB drop. Considering that we're talking 300-360 from Death Sentence and another 180 or so from autoattacks, you're looking at the difference right there. Thing is, you now get eHP out of it, and that's really the key to the whole bit. The big problems with Inner Beast before were that you were dead before you could use it, and gimped once you did.

[Judge_Xero]

As I said in my previous balance thread, though, Inner Beast was never really the problem so much as Wrath and eHP. My guess is that the dev team decided that instead of giving a large passive HP to take advantage of Inner Beast, they would rather make the ability an eHP extension.

Definitely a good thing, since now it can scale to damage without having to gear to do damage. Although it was nice when over-geared for dungeons to self heal, but Vengeance by itself will pretty much take care of that anyways.

[Shingi]

I'm personally still disappointed that they didn't try to focus on reworking the self-healing aspect, but what they have suggested will more or less work where the old design simply didn't.

I am still leaning against the particular changes to Vengeance, though. From a design standpoint, I still feel it would better be placed on Unchained than Vengeance. Both are an effective damage increase, but Unchained would additionally reduce the ability to stack buffs too frequently, and would avoid potential design issues for the MRD second job.

i'm in agreement that a change to the self-healing would have been the more "thematic" change, but scaling that so its effective at endgame and not overpowering for other content would require a level of fine-tuning that could take several months, and WAR needed a change quickly, and could very likely be "exploited" (or used in an unexpected/unpredicted-by-the-dev-team manner) much like taking 2 PLD's into coil was. of course any change to any class can produce that result,,

I'm unsure of a few of the changes also, mercy stroke's alteration makes little to no sense to me, as for me its issue wasnt about the cooldown, but the timing required to get an effective heal from it when you have 7 other people involved in combat. holmgang's change looks more like a provoke-replacer as well, and i'm unsure how that will effect dynamics in two-tank events. can only wait and see how the players take on these changes and how they effect balance though.

[fuzz]

Awesome analysis. I skimmed through everything, but the graphs were extremely helpful in understanding your analysis w.o having to read everything

-fuzz

[Yunnie]

War Defiance will give +20% healing received .. Along with +25% HP... How does that affect eHP?
It looks like in your equation, your not listing it

My interpretation is your listing defiance as only +25% HP without taking into account healing received bonuses-
Edit:
Never mid - I re-read some other prior posts, and you don't consider healing received part of eHP. So ignore this post of mine

[Mihael_Longclaw]

Quick question, does PLD's Blind effect stack with Featherfoot?
I just see these 2 jobs accenting eachother so well now.

[Mihael_Longclaw]

War Defiance will give +20% healing received .. Along with +25% HP... How does that affect eHP?
It looks like in your equation, your not listing it

My interpretation is your listing defiance as only +25% HP without taking into account healing received bonuses-

Well I did some math, PLD is still better in that regard.

If both tanks take 5000 damage, at the same gear 6000 base HP (7500 WAR in Defiance)
The 20% mitigation from PLD, reduces 5000 damage to 4000 damage (PLD @ 2000/6000 HP)
The WAR takes the full 5000 (WAR @ 2500/7500 HP)

Say the WHM Cure 2s for 500 (I know low in this scenario) that 500, becomes 600 for the WAR.

Now we calculate how much healing is required for both tanks.

4000/500 = 8
5000/600 = 8.33

So in this scenario, the WAR still needs 9 Cures 2s to fill him up
The PLD needs 8.

[Kitru]

I re-read some other prior posts, and you don't consider healing received part of eHP. So ignore this post of mine

Increased healing received should *never* be part of eHP. eHP is what you calculate to determine your ability to survive bursts of damage, which, in layman's terms, is how much damage you can survive before you get healed. Increasing healing *is* a factor in mean mitigation, which is basically how much healing you require over the course of a fight to offset the damage that you will inevitably take. There is no single value you can use to gauge tank performance; you have to look at both of them.

[Bardo]

Shouldn't stoneskin factor into eHP? Especially as PLD can cast it on themselves before burst?

[Enjin]

It's interesting that you include featherfoot but not the blind from PLD flash. It's a minor point to be sure, but generally the things you can't blind are things you can't dodge anyway. What is nice is the potential synergy between blind and featherfoot. I know blind DRs but it's also true that the DR does reset, but I'm not sure on the time.