Lancer : New Job Tank

[Nicodareus]

Since we have a mage tank thread and evasion with monk. Figured I would start one around riposte as a core mechanic. Seeing how Flurry (parry) is a core skill of lancer seemed like a good place to start. We can use Gladiator as the third class because let's face it, provoke is too much a part of things atm. Not sure what we can use as the secondary or lvl 15 class.

The Job would excel in physical defensive tanking while being weak to magic based attacks as a counter balance. This already fits into the Lancer theme with their armor.

Thoughts?

Cross Class - Provoke, Flash, Convalescence, ? , ?

Lvl 30 - Strength of the Mountain - "Lancer" gains a 10% HP increase and has pdef increased by 30%. All attacks now have a 1.5 threat Modifier. Toggle effect like defiance.

Lvl 35 - Riposte - 50% chance on successful parry to counter attack the attacker with potency 100 attack, threat modifier x3


Lvl 40 - Sight beyond Sight - Duration 10 seconds. Allows the "lancer" to parry attacks with a 50% effect (think current parry is only 24%ish? Clarification please). Cool down 60 seconds.

Lvl 45 - Arcane Lance - 1 attack. Cool down 3min. "Lancer" is able to mitigate a magical attack as if it was a physical attack.

Lvl 50 - Byakugan - For 6 seconds is able to parry and riposte every attack made against the "lancer" with potency 125 attacks that are threat x5 attacks. Cooldown 90 seconds (since the mitigation isn't like HG shorter cool down but longer then a minute because it does deal damage back and on ae pulls/encounters would be very deadly for threat and clearing)

Honestly kinda slapped together but let's build it up shall we?

[Mhaeric]

I see a Templar being the second job of the Lancer. A holy knight integrating a mix of both offensive and defensive quasi-magic abilities into tanking role. Abilities could include things like Astra (nullifies next status effect) and Rasp (Damages target's MP and silences them) as well as attacks like Break (Reduces target's attack and defence) or Lifebreak (Damage and reduce target's Max HP causing something similar to Antibody for Virus when it wears off so that it can't be spammed.) There would also be abilities tied to parrying such as Bonecrusher (Heavy damage, but only after parrying an attack) or Fending Strikes (large parry buff that automatically damages any target that you parry.)

I haven't thought it through as much as you in terms of actual abilities, but I think the concept of a holy warrior fits well with the concepts behind the Ishgardian Holy See.

[Kitru]

The Job would excel in physical defensive tanking while being weak to magic based attacks as a counter balance.

This would make it a tank that you only bring around for fights with no magical damage, and, assuming you mean it to be a tank that has superior survivability against physical damage, for those fights with a lot of physical damage, it's the only tank you would want to bring. Tanks should have similar survivability in all circumstances and making one tank basically have a lethal allergy to magic damage is bad design.

As to the abilities themselves, Strength of the Mountain is a painfully weak tank stance. Assuming you put them into tank armor so they've got VIT stacked, 10% +hp leaves them with 88% of the eHP of the other tanks and the 30% increase pdef wouldn't bridge the gap, nor would it provide anywhere near the same mean mitigation contributions as the other tank stances (you're basically talking about having something marginally stronger than Foresight up at all times; PLD is basically Rampart and WAR is Convalescence; think about that); also, you'd be having a tank that deals as much damage as a full on DPS since the tank stance has no debuff. You've writtin Riposte as a trait, as opposed to an ability, and, if it were an ability, it would definitely need to proc off of getting a parry; if it's off GCD, it should have a CD of something like 8-10 seconds. Sight Beyond Sight is just a 25% increase in parry value (it varies based upon STR). Arcane Lance is a next to worthless CD because it's a single attack mitigated the same level that every other tank already does every minute. Byakugen isn't incredibly mediocre since 6 seconds is a whopping 2-3 attacks and guaranteeing a parry is what Keen Flurry already effectively does for Lancers (WAR and PLD have about a 30-40% parry chance atm; Keen Flurry is +80%) so it's not even really effective mitigation CD (guaranteeing a parry is basically a 20% reduction in damage taken for the duration since you already have an existing parry chance).

I honestly have to wonder why you seem to think retributive damage with high enmity modifiers is so required. The devs have already said that they can add or remove high enmity modifiers from attacks when a class swaps to or from tank job; the same is almost definitely true of the positional requirements on the attacks (else a LNC tank would have a more boring rotation than PLD because it would be Full Thrust combo and Phlebotomize). It doesn't really serve a purpose.

[Nicodareus]

First - said it was slapped together so how about instead of just being destructive why not actually make suggestions?

Yes I left numbers intentionally weak as a baseline.

Not once in an mmo (spanning 17 years) has having a specialty tank negated others unless it was broken like NIN. IMO having a strength vs one def while being weak to another wouldn't negate Pal or War at all. Versatile vs specialist. Specially as stated you keep it within reason.

The riposte attacks at 100/125 potency is weak. Its combo starter DMG not finisher so the threat modifiers aren't as out of line. Also with baseline 1.5 threat vs 1 of a DPS it is a way to use the job mechanic as threat builder.

Yes screwed up Riposte as it is more trait then skill.


As for lvl 45 Arcane Lance thought was to allow the job something so it wouldn't be useless outside of exceptional magic heavy fights and allow light to moderate magic fights a chance. Again without exclusion.

Your also right the HP is low, but rather start low and tweak then suggest overpowered crap like I usually see.

So suggestions or just be negative?

[Nathan061111]

First - said it was slapped together so how about instead of just being destructive why not actually make suggestions?

So suggestions or just be negative?

Dude no one is being destructive, if you post something that you haven't totally thought out people will instantly find every fault and point it out to you. I'd suggest thinking things through before you put them up for criticism and peer review.

Personally as it stands your tank design wouldn't work, so far you have Keen flurry, Riposte, Sight beyond Sight and Byakugan, plus Convalescence. This just isn't enough for damage mitigation. When you consider a Warrior: it has Inner Beast, Foresight, (Bloodbath), Thrill of Battle, Vengeance, Storm's Path, plus Convalescence, Featherfoot, Second Wind, Mantra and Awareness.

Edit: Change damage mitigation to survival skills, as not all the abilities "mitigate" damage.

[Nicodareus]

snip

Have nothing wrong with saying things are bad or misguided. However at the same time offering nothing back in return for information or discussion doesn't help either. As to your survival skill comment there is room for improvement but the quick thought was to try and make things not currently in game to be able to give a slightly different feel/style.

ATM its overall damage is too high as I intentionally left a damage reduction off for the time being.

Some abilities need tweaked to mesh better.

Some need renamed I guess though the Naruto reference was a stretch .... Thundercats was awesome... come on!! And its not like serious famers don't watch anime and use of Naruto would be a popular naming reference. Though again admittedly was a stretch.


This forum moves slow so why not work together through discussion and just see what we the community can do.

Actually off work after today so will try putting more time into the baseline stuff. But how can we use a parry based survival skill to create a tank? Thought building around a riposte concept would work?

[Kitru]

But how can we use a parry based survival skill to create a tank? Thought building around a riposte concept would work?

Riposte doesn't really work as a theme for a polearm fighter. Ripostes are more the domain of sword and light weapon fighters. A polearm's special attack "schtick" is generally that it can do amazing things when set against a charge, though that's something relatively pointless to implement in an MMO because it's not like charge attacks are used outside of PvP and a *very* small number of enemies.

Personally, for a polearm tank, I honestly have to wonder why people think that it should be parry focused. Polearms have never been associated with parrying, and the only "reason" that I can come up with for the decision is Keen Flurry, which, to me, would make more sense as the sole RNG mitigator in the CD suite as opposed to the central mechanic that the class is built around, much like GLD has a shield but the only thing that cranks it up is Bulwark.

It's also somewhat problematic to come up with a given theme for a polearm tank. Templar, which is the most common choice, has issues because it's basically just a PLD with a spear (in fact, if you check out the previous incarnations of Templar, you'd see that they actually end up using knightswords as often/more often than spears because the knightswords tend to be stronger); you're not really getting into a unique theme there and, because of that, are going to be retreading much of the same ground.

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I thought that an interesting variation upon the lancer tank would be the Geomancer. Geomancer based off of CNJ is already problematic because it is bogged down with so very, very many heals that would need to be worked around such that I doubt it would ever get a DPS job. While most of the implementations Geomancer throughout the series are casters, though they tend to have decent physical stats as well, the Tactics iterations, place them as being excellent physical attacks with balanced stats or reasonably proficient physical fighters with utterly ridiculous defense. I've always preferred the Tactics iteration because using a Bell as a weapon and dressing in recolored Santa clothes always rubbed me the wrong way. It's a bit of deviation from the standard mold, but it brings in a theme that allows for deviation from both the PLD and WAR. Plus, the LNCs guild is in Gridania, which is nature magic central so it makes some sense for there to be a little bleed over.

One of the bigger problems with designing a LNC tank job is that tanks have a more pressing need for an AoE attack/enmity generator than the other roles because they have to keep the attention of everything, especially against healers and AoEs; LNCs don't get any AoEs until 42, which is problematic. You could feasibly make the argument that they should be using Flash, though that would require giving them some kind of powerful native mp recovery (not *completely* unworkable, but potentially so). PLD has already shown that you don't *need* to get your tank stance at 30, which means that the level 30 Geomancy attack could very easily be an AoE attack, my preferred idea being a ground patch, whether ranged or not, that lasts 10-20 seconds and applies a high enmity DoT to anyone standing nearby; conversely, it could be a straight up AoE, like an earthquake or burst of poisonous thorns.

For a tank stance, some kind of pseudo-transmutation would probably be apt, empowering your flesh with the resilience of stone or hardwood. You'd then have 3 abilities remaining to bolster the relatively weak LNC tank CD suite: Lifesurge's heal is only marginally useful because it's once every minute and applies a heal about as large as Inner Beasts, which isn't all that great, and Keen Flurry, which, while quite nice, isn't what you would call "incredible". You'd devote one to an uber-CD, a physicks immunity CD, and a traditional tank CD. You could probably repurpose Blood for Blood to become a tank CD as well (since increasing damage taken doesn't really make sense for a tank; could probably just turn the damage taken into damage reduced and be fine with that, leaving the damage buff alone, because tanks kind of need that), to round it out.

The baseline abilities wouldn't need all the much changing. Add high enmity modifiers to a few attacks (Full Thrust combo and Ring of Thorns), remove the positional effects while folding the positional benefits into the baseline effects (Impulse Drive, Disembowel, and Heavy Thrust so that you can actually use them as a tank), and tweak some of the more offensively driven ones to be more tank focused (Heavy Thrust applies an absorb shield or HoT instead of +dam and Chaos Thrust applies an RoH/SP style debuff instead of a DoT), and you've done most of what you need.

All in all, it would look something like...

Attacks:
The Full Thrust combo would be your high enmity combo, which balances out the massive +enmity from a x5 enmity mod on Full Thrust by having to use other combos to maximize mitigation; effectively, the Maim that WAR's use to crank up their enmity generation through Butcher's Block to make up for having to use SP/SE in the first place is simply folded into the high enmity combo. Heavy Thrust and CT combo would be used every 30 seconds, with Phlebotomize taking a back seat most likely, which creates a rotation that looks like HT>CT combo>FT combo>FT combo>FT combo, which is 32.5 seconds, with leaves the buffs/debuffs down for 1 GCD (which is what you get with BB>BB>SP, so it's appropriate).

Assuming that HT no longer increases damage, CT gets something instead of the DoT, and the damage debuff/enmity modifier from the stance are on par with those of the existing ones, ePot/GCD would be 773.78 ((((150 + 200 * 3 + 330 * 5) * 3 + 170 + (180 + 220 + 200) / 13 + 83.33) / .9) and pot/GCD would be 332.76 ((((150 + 200 + 330) * 3 + 170 + (180 + 220 + 200)) / 13 + 83.33) / 0.9). For comparison, from the math I did here and here, PLD gets ~870 and ~305 while WAR gets ~730 and ~325 (using SP>BB>BB) or ~595 and ~370 (using SP>SE>BB). As such, those numbers are pretty much exactly where they should be (the max enmity combo of Disembowel>FT combo>FT combo>FT combo spam would generate 860.27 ePot/GCD and 340 pot/GCD).

Job abilities (in no particular order):
(Assuming the armor would be the LNC stuff with tank stats)
(GLA and CNJ as cross-class: Convalescence, Provoke, and Stoneskin are all "required")
1. Local Quake: 120 potency; 5x enmity modifier; 20% Heavy for 10 seconds; 5y radius, 15y range, ground targeted AoE, consumes MP
2. Nature's Embrace: 25% -dam; 2x enmity modifier; 25% +hp, 10% +evasion, 10% +healing; stance (evasion makes them slightly inferior to mitigating magic damage)
3. Wind Ward: Increases evasion by 20% for 15 seconds; 120 sec CD
4. Deep Roots: You are Heavy 60% and are immune to all physics effects; 15 second duration; 3 min CD
5. Unending Life: Your hp cannot be reduced below 0 by most attacks and all healing you receive is increased by 100% for 10 seconds; 5 min CD

This would keep mean mitigation and eHP on par with the other tanks (though slightly worse for magic damage since those cannot be evaded and slightly better for physical thanks to the evasion and self healing operating on a multiplicative level instead of an additional) and provide them with a tank CD suite of Keen Flurry (effectively guaranteed parry for 20 secs every 90), Blood for Blood (20% DR for 20 seconds every 80, but comes bundled together with the job's +dam), Convalescence (20% +healing for 20 seconds every 120), Wind Ward (20% +evasion for 15 seconds every 120), and Unending Life as the uber-CD, which puts the job about even with WAR.

I would give Heavy Thrust a 30 sec HoT governed by attack power, the equivalent of 50 potency worth of damage per tick (Cure potency is wonky so I'm not sure what the exact number would be) along with a Refresh (to make up for Local Quake consuming MP, along with Stoneskin). The only thing I'm not sure of is what Chaos Thrust would do. I'm thinking it could be something like a 10% reduction in the target's accuracy (basically only affects auto-attacks) without being Blind, but I'm still not entirely sure. Either way, as soon as that's sorted out, it would be a pretty spankin' good tank: proper enmity, damage, and survivability, plus, it would definitely play differently than PLD or WAR.

PS. How's that for constructive? :3

[Dotsusama]

I approve of a Lancer-based tank if only because it might make some use of the heavier mail armor and light plate sets that I kept seeing while leveling up.

(Seriously, what were the item folks thinking with that stuff?)

[Ultimatecalibur]

The Job would excel in physical defensive tanking while being weak to magic based attacks as a counter balance. This already fits into the Lancer theme with their armor.

Lancers have access to a fair number of tank level def=mdef armors. In fact you can level from 23 to 50 exclusively in crafted def=mdef armors, starting with Iron Scale Mail (23), Steel Scale Mail (32), Horn Scale Mail (38), Tortoiseshell Scale Mail (46) and finally Mosshorn Scale Mail (47, ilevel 50).

[Alistaire]

Lancers have access to a fair number of tank level def=mdef armors. In fact you can level from 23 to 50 exclusively in crafted def=mdef armors, starting with Iron Scale Mail (23), Steel Scale Mail (32), Horn Scale Mail (38), Tortoiseshell Scale Mail (46) and finally Mosshorn Scale Mail (47, ilevel 50).

Also certain dungeon drops like Paladin's trousers from Cutter's Cry.