Changing some of the less useful traits

[Seaku]

A lot of people like to talk about changing some of the abilities, while agree with some of those ideas there are some traits in the classes currently that do very little. In some cases they do close to nothing. I would like to discuss some potential changes or at least indulge in some wishful thinking to find some of these traits a place. (Disclaimer: I might have gotten some of the ideas from discussions on the board but I can't honestly remember, I just would like to present some ways forward for the traits)

Gladiator:
Awareness: Change this give you a buff to prevent the next 3 critical strikes against you. No timer on the buff.
Enhanced Awareness: Awareness now prevents the next 5 critical strikes against you.

Arcanist:
Enhanced Pet actions: 50% chance for when your pet scores a critical hit with an auto attack to make your next Ruin II, Adloquium or Fester used within 10 seconds a critical hit.

Thaurmaturge:
Surecast: During your next spell you may move while casting, lasts 10 seconds.
Enhanced Surecast: No change, but the trait becomes better with the change to surecast above.

Conjurer:
Overcure: Your casting of Cure II gives you a buff that stacks for up to 5 times (no timer on the buff). Every stack of the buff reduces the cost of your next Cure III by 10%. When Cure III is cast the stacks reset.

Maurader:
Mercy Stroke: Change the CD to 20 seconds. Remove the healing portion.
Enhanced Mercy Stroke: When Mercy Stroke is used you place a debuff on the enemy for 6 seconds, if they die within that time you restore up to 20% of your health. This debuff may only apply once every 40 seconds.
Enhanced Fracture: Storm's eye now resets the timer on the debuff portion in addition to the extended time.

Reasons for the changes:
Gladiator: Currently Awareness is used with other CDs as it isn't all the great, in addition it may actually do nothing when you press it. As enemies likely do not have a high critical rate in the first place. Changing it to the above means that when you use the ability you KNOW it will mitigate damage, just like any other CD.

Arcanist: Currenlty Enhanced pet actions give you either a 0.1% improvement on dps or hps, which means the trait is kind of superfluous. Changing it to the above means that the hps or dps can be improved by a fun little ability you have to pay attention to. I haven't done the math behind how much this would improve dps/hps but if needed adjust the % chance to the appropriate level.

Thaumaturge: I really don't know many people who use the ability as is except maybe in pvp. This would solve some of the blm issues with moving and still make it useful as a cross-class ability.

Conjurer: Overcure currently always comes into play when you don't need it, after all when you are cure II bombing you are likely doing single target healing and not AOE. This should at least build up some charge so when you do need cure III the trait has done something.

Maurader: This change is a quality of life change for mercy stroke and makes it a little better for the melee who cross class it. It might improve melee dps by a little bit but it is only for the last 20% of the fight which goes the fastest anyway due to limit breaks and most CDs usually being up for the last stretch of a boss. If the dps does get to high for melee because of it you can change it to 40 secs and have the trait reduce it to 20 secs. (healing portion still only every 40 seconds.)

As for fracture, I want the trait to do something other than add more to the duration. After all, how many Warriors actually use it? I see more Monks use it and Dragoons (before 2.1 anyway). Any ideas on better traits in its place?

The idea is to suggest changes to the less useful traits so they actually come into play and feel potent when used. Since most of the ones I've listed are rather lackluster and made me think upon first viewing "Oh, okay, this trait isn't that good".

[Kitru]

Awareness: Change this give you a buff to prevent the next 3 critical strikes against you. No timer on the buff.
Enhanced Awareness: Awareness now prevents the next 5 critical strikes against you.

The problem with Awareness is that it only applies to critical hits, which, for NPCs, only occur on auto-attacks, which aren't really dangerous. What you're basically doing is extending the duration, for most intents and purposes (the only time it wouldn't be a basic duration extension is if you were in an AoE scenario). Until such time that Awareness is basically required for a given fight mechanic (e.g. boss has an insta-gib crit special attack that it uses every 2 minutes), the purpose of Awareness is going to be capping spike potential for a certain time frame as opposed to actually reducing damage taken over time (which is what you're treating it as; ignoring 3-5 crits every 2 mins us going to give you less than you'd get out of Second Wind; auto-attacks just aren't that big). A more useful (and visible) way to do this would be for it to basically be a CD that limits the size of any hits received for the duration to 50% of max hp (such that, if you're above 50%, you can't be one-shot by anything): it would cap out burst potential without affecting non-burst scenarios (which is pretty much what it's there for).

Enhanced Pet actions: 50% chance for when your pet scores a critical hit with an auto attack to make your next Ruin II, Adloquium or Fester used within 10 seconds a critical hit.

I like the idea for the tweak, mainly because it means more Adloq crits and basically prevents any wasted procs, but I don't really see a reason for it. Enhanced Pet Actions isn't a fundamentally worthless trait like most of the others you're suggesting here, even if the bonus is small, because it's basically a passive bonus. It could just as easily be equated with the flat attribute increases since it provides much the same benefit.

Overcure: Your casting of Cure II gives you a buff that stacks for up to 5 times (no timer on the buff). Every stack of the buff reduces the cost of your next Cure III by 10%. When Cure III is cast the stacks reset.

Having it be a guaranteed stack upon every cast makes it a bit too strong, especially since you don't have any time limit on the buff. The point of the procs is for them to be procs, not abstract build up mechanisms. Your suggestion here just turns the WHM AoE healing strat into spamming 5 Cure IIs to build stacks during any ST phase. You wouldn't even need to do it all that often since it's not like there are any situations in which you need to chaincast AoE heals (so you're only expecting to cast 1 Cure III every 30 seconds, at best). The problem with Overcure is that it's a proc off of a conditional ability (Cure II is burst healing so you should only use it during non-standard high DPS situations) that empowers an ability for an entirely different condition (Cure III is for AoE healing); the proc doesn't apply to the situation in which it would be proc'd, which renders it worthless. You're basically saying that the problem is that it's a proc, which is a different notion entirely.

How Overcure should be "fixed" largely depends upon what exactly it's supposed to do. If it's supposed to provide an efficient outlet for Cure III, it should either be more reliable (so that you can precast Cure II on a tank for a bit of overhealing and have a reasonable expectation of getting the proc) or proc off of stuff you're actually liable to have used shortly before casting Cure III (like Cure or a Regen tick). If it's supposed to provide an increased benefit during a burst healing phase (akin to how Freecure affects scenarios in which you're using Cure II), the proc itself needs to be empowered such that you'll actually use it (have it reduce cost by half *and* guarantee a crit, so that it provides more than you could expect from an average Cure II while costing less). Basically, it needs to proc off of more abilities, have a higher proc chance (but not guaranteed), or have a stronger effect. As it stands, it's a proc without a functional purpose.

Mercy Stroke: Change the CD to 20 seconds. Remove the healing portion.
Enhanced Mercy Stroke: When Mercy Stroke is used you place a debuff on the enemy for 6 seconds, if they die within that time you restore up to 20% of your health. This debuff may only apply once every 40 seconds.

Reducing the CD on Mercy Stroke to 20 seconds is a totally unneeded massive buff for a cross class ability. Mercy Stroke would be *way* stronger than it should be, since it would be pretty close behind Misery's End, the ARC/BRD exclusive (25 pot/GCD sub-20% compared to ~40). As a CC ability, Mercy Stroke is pretty much where it should be: it provides a reasonable benefit that doesn't provide a massive increase in performance. The healing portion is just as bad for other classes/jobs as it is for WAR so removing that aspect doesn't even change anything from a balance perspective.

Making the heal more approachable is definitely something that should be addressed though, specifically because it's such a non-issue for anyone using it. Rather than trying to make it a better DPS boost as a CC ability and having the MRD talent turn it into a relatively unimportant self-heal (you don't generally need to get healed right after something dies since, you know, something just died), just tweak the heal trigger for everyone to what you intend for the trait and leave the CDs as they are.

Enhanced Fracture: Storm's eye now resets the timer on the debuff portion in addition to the extended time.

WAR already deals a boatload more damage than PLD (honestly, it's honestly bordering on the "too much" range), and this would be adding an extra 16.67 pot/GCD (which is what the Fracture DoT does). I realize that you want Fracture to actually have a practical place on the WAR ability bar, even if it's just tossing it on and refreshing the DoT with your another attack and never touching it otherwise, but that's not a balanced way to do so. Personally, I don't really see much need for it since Fracture *does* provide a DPS increase, even if it is so small that you don't really lose anything just ignoring it (and, honestly, gain better uptime on your debuffs, which are more useful). The only change I could really see making it in with would be for the ticks to have some chance at providing Wrath stacks so that you have a practical reason to reapply it (rather than just using it once at the start before ignoring it until the target disappears for an extended period), though that's more of a change to Fracture itself as opposed to the trait itself (which would actually be appreciated if it generated Wrath stacks as I suggested).

[Seaku]

The problem with Awareness is that it only applies to critical hits, which, for NPCs, only occur on auto-attacks, which aren't really dangerous. What you're basically doing is extending the duration, for most intents and purposes (the only time it wouldn't be a basic duration extension is if you were in an AoE scenario). Until such time that Awareness is basically required for a given fight mechanic (e.g. boss has an insta-gib crit special attack that it uses every 2 minutes), the purpose of Awareness is going to be capping spike potential for a certain time frame as opposed to actually reducing damage taken over time (which is what you're treating it as; ignoring 3-5 crits every 2 mins us going to give you less than you'd get out of Second Wind; auto-attacks just aren't that big). A more useful (and visible) way to do this would be for it to basically be a CD that limits the size of any hits received for the duration to 50% of max hp (such that, if you're above 50%, you can't be one-shot by anything): it would cap out burst potential without affecting non-burst scenarios (which is pretty much what it's there for).

Yea that sounds fine, didn't realize that no special abilities at all could crit. I thought it was only abilities such as death sentence that couldn't crit.

I like the idea for the tweak, mainly because it means more Adloq crits and basically prevents any wasted procs, but I don't really see a reason for it. Enhanced Pet Actions isn't a fundamentally worthless trait like most of the others you're suggesting here, even if the bonus is small, because it's basically a passive bonus. It could just as easily be equated with the flat attribute increases since it provides much the same benefit.

My thinking exactly, if it could be replaced by a small stat boost what's the point? I'd rather have an interesting trait then one that is a passive that does nothing to the play style of the class. Yes the trait isn't worthless, it does do something but like I said is largely superfluous since it can just be replaced by said stat boost.

Having it be a guaranteed stack upon every cast makes it a bit too strong, especially since you don't have any time limit on the buff. The point of the procs is for them to be procs, not abstract build up mechanisms. Your suggestion here just turns the WHM AoE healing strat into spamming 5 Cure IIs to build stacks during any ST phase. You wouldn't even need to do it all that often since it's not like there are any situations in which you need to chaincast AoE heals (so you're only expecting to cast 1 Cure III every 30 seconds, at best). The problem with Overcure is that it's a proc off of a conditional ability (Cure II is burst healing so you should only use it during non-standard high DPS situations) that empowers an ability for an entirely different condition (Cure III is for AoE healing); the proc doesn't apply to the situation in which it would be proc'd, which renders it worthless. You're basically saying that the problem is that it's a proc, which is a different notion entirely.

How Overcure should be "fixed" largely depends upon what exactly it's supposed to do. If it's supposed to provide an efficient outlet for Cure III, it should either be more reliable (so that you can precast Cure II on a tank for a bit of overhealing and have a reasonable expectation of getting the proc) or proc off of stuff you're actually liable to have used shortly before casting Cure III (like Cure or a Regen tick). If it's supposed to provide an increased benefit during a burst healing phase (akin to how Freecure affects scenarios in which you're using Cure II), the proc itself needs to be empowered such that you'll actually use it (have it reduce cost by half *and* guarantee a crit, so that it provides more than you could expect from an average Cure II while costing less). Basically, it needs to proc off of more abilities, have a higher proc chance (but not guaranteed), or have a stronger effect. As it stands, it's a proc without a functional purpose.

The problem I find with the base ability as it stands is it is very rare for you to have used Cure II then move to a stacked AOE heal with your proc ready. It's great when it happens but I can't honestly it does with enough frequency. I also don't see the issue with changing the mechanic to a build mechanic, sure as I've put it up currently it makes cure III almost always half price on the first cure III you do for an AOE phase.

How about say medica has a 25% chance of making your next cure III half price, similar to the scholars ability for a free succor. Since if you are placing sacred soils likely you want to prevent large AOE damage. Of course that might not always be useful either. You can have my suggested mechanic only have a 20-25 sec timer though when you generate a new stack it doesn't reset the timer.

Reducing the CD on Mercy Stroke to 20 seconds is a totally unneeded massive buff for a cross class ability. Mercy Stroke would be *way* stronger than it should be, since it would be pretty close behind Misery's End, the ARC/BRD exclusive (25 pot/GCD sub-20% compared to ~40). As a CC ability, Mercy Stroke is pretty much where it should be: it provides a reasonable benefit that doesn't provide a massive increase in performance. The healing portion is just as bad for other classes/jobs as it is for WAR so removing that aspect doesn't even change anything from a balance perspective.

Making the heal more approachable is definitely something that should be addressed though, specifically because it's such a non-issue for anyone using it. Rather than trying to make it a better DPS boost as a CC ability and having the MRD talent turn it into a relatively unimportant self-heal (you don't generally need to get healed right after something dies since, you know, something just died), just tweak the heal trigger for everyone to what you intend for the trait and leave the CDs as they are.

You can reduce the potency on mercy stroke for CC if it's that worrying about the damage, keep it 40 secs. (40 sec CD, 100 potency/200 potency for war) Most of that was put it to make mercy stroke more interesting as a CC as well as improving it for healing. Honestly the main use I would've thought the healing portion of the ability is during add phases to save the healer some mana. So if it put a debuff on the enemy at least then it could be used to actually gain the health back, instead of chancing against the dps.

WAR already deals a boatload more damage than PLD (honestly, it's honestly bordering on the "too much" range), and this would be adding an extra 16.67 pot/GCD (which is what the Fracture DoT does). I realize that you want Fracture to actually have a practical place on the WAR ability bar, even if it's just tossing it on and refreshing the DoT with your another attack and never touching it otherwise, but that's not a balanced way to do so. Personally, I don't really see much need for it since Fracture *does* provide a DPS increase, even if it is so small that you don't really lose anything just ignoring it (and, honestly, gain better uptime on your debuffs, which are more useful). The only change I could really see making it in with would be for the ticks to have some chance at providing Wrath stacks so that you have a practical reason to reapply it (rather than just using it once at the start before ignoring it until the target disappears for an extended period), though that's more of a change to Fracture itself as opposed to the trait itself (which would actually be appreciated if it generated Wrath stacks as I suggested).

Fracture is a weird ability as I really don't see it having much of a place at the minute. It doesn't do much for warriors, doesn't do anything for dragoons anymore and for monks it is an ever so marginal dps increase. I don't know what you'd have in its place but honestly something interesting or make the trait do something interesting. Chance of wrath stacks does sound like a good idea.

[Kitru]

My thinking exactly, if it could be replaced by a small stat boost what's the point? I'd rather have an interesting trait then one that is a passive that does nothing to the play style of the class. Yes the trait isn't worthless, it does do something but like I said is largely superfluous since it can just be replaced by said stat boost.

Well, it's a good deal more interesting than a simple global stat boost as I see it since it adds an element of randomness that a flat boost doesn't. It's in the middle ground between the worthless/boring talents and the useful/interesting ones.

How about say medica has a 25% chance of making your next cure III half price, similar to the scholars ability for a free succor. Since if you are placing sacred soils likely you want to prevent large AOE damage. Of course that might not always be useful either. You can have my suggested mechanic only have a 20-25 sec timer though when you generate a new stack it doesn't reset the timer.

I think it's important to keep the random element when tweaking the proc, but I'm not entirely sure that having it proc off of Medica would be all that useful. Recall that Sacred Soil is used *before* the AoE damage occurs and, on top of that, Succor can be used preemptively as well. WHM AoE healing are entirely different. Proccing off of a Medica cast only marginally less likely to end up with a wasted proc as it currently does, which is why I suggested attaching the proc to an ability you're liable to be using before a big AoE event, like Cure or Regen; even if you're liable to get some wasted procs, you're more likely to have a proc active at a time when it would be useful.

A potential middle ground would be to have it proc off of Medica II, since it's an effective ability to cast in preparation for an AoE, thanks to the HoT component, much like Succor. I would probably have it proc off of the cast as opposed to targets getting healed so as to prevent requiring a ludicrously low proc chance to prevent a practical proc chance being too high (even a 5% chance per target healed by the initial component on 8 targets would amount to a 33% chance to get the proc).

You can reduce the potency on mercy stroke for CC if it's that worrying about the damage, keep it 40 secs. (40 sec CD, 100 potency/200 potency for war) Most of that was put it to make mercy stroke more interesting as a CC as well as improving it for healing. Honestly the main use I would've thought the healing portion of the ability is during add phases to save the healer some mana. So if it put a debuff on the enemy at least then it could be used to actually gain the health back, instead of chancing against the dps.

Reducing the damage just makes it less likely that you'll get the heal off without the debuff that provides the healing. Even if you can use it more often, you're reducing the "proc" chance. If you want to have the heal be purposeful, it needs to be predictable (which it isn't now because you have to be crazy lucky to get it at *just* the right time), which is why I say that the debuff needs to be present on the ability by default. Reducing the CD is just trying to turn it into more of a DPS tool, as opposed to a more reliable self heal, which is what I'm inferring your intent to be.

[Seaku]

I think it's important to keep the random element when tweaking the proc, but I'm not entirely sure that having it proc off of Medica would be all that useful. Recall that Sacred Soil is used *before* the AoE damage occurs and, on top of that, Succor can be used preemptively as well. WHM AoE healing are entirely different. Proccing off of a Medica cast only marginally less likely to end up with a wasted proc as it currently does, which is why I suggested attaching the proc to an ability you're liable to be using before a big AoE event, like Cure or Regen; even if you're liable to get some wasted procs, you're more likely to have a proc active at a time when it would be useful.

A potential middle ground would be to have it proc off of Medica II, since it's an effective ability to cast in preparation for an AoE, thanks to the HoT component, much like Succor. I would probably have it proc off of the cast as opposed to targets getting healed so as to prevent requiring a ludicrously low proc chance to prevent a practical proc chance being too high (even a 5% chance per target healed by the initial component on 8 targets would amount to a 33% chance to get the proc).

Yes making it proc off the regen ticks would be a bit of a nightmare balance wise, thinking about it you could also change the mechanic to something completely different and change presence of mind to make the next 3-5 casts cost 1/2 price.

Then in turn make cure II have a 15% chance to make the next regen +50% in potency or something similar.

Reducing the damage just makes it less likely that you'll get the heal off without the debuff that provides the healing. Even if you can use it more often, you're reducing the "proc" chance. If you want to have the heal be purposeful, it needs to be predictable (which it isn't now because you have to be crazy lucky to get it at *just* the right time), which is why I say that the debuff needs to be present on the ability by default. Reducing the CD is just trying to turn it into more of a DPS tool, as opposed to a more reliable self heal, which is what I'm inferring your intent to be.

I was only suggesting reducing the damage for CC, so it is 100 potency every 40 seconds without the healing portion of the attack. 200 potency every 40 seconds for a warrior with the debuff to heal them if the target dies while the debuff is active. Going back to the debuff, basically it was mercy stroke to place a debuff on the enemy that lasts 6 seconds, if they die within those 6 seconds the warrior gets the healing effect.

I was mostly suggesting lowering the CD for CC because, 1 button every 90 seconds for the last 20% of the fight (which means one activation usually) is kind of boring. I honestly think that all CC abilities should do something different depending on the class that CCs it but that is not the model we have so that might be for another time/thread.