WAR Adjustments

[Kaonis]

2.1 brought some much needed adjustments to WAR, but as always there could still be some more tweaks to balance this class and change some of the frustrations any WAR feels playing it.

This is just a bit of a discussion on the stuff I feel are deserving of the most attention for WAR's.

I. Holmgang

This I know has been discussed numerous times before, but this is one of the most confused skills in the game. It tries to be a defensive cool down, and at the same time tries to be a threat/positional management skill; yet it fails on all accounts. As far as being used to grab an enemy, it's range is so limited that it's only possible application is to grab an enemy who is about to turn and run after a healer/ranged and give you 2 GCD to get threat back.

It's main use seems to be as a defensive cooldown to keep you alive through something that would otherwise kill you. The main issue I have with this is it's rather weak in this regard. It's effects of immortality only last a mere 6 seconds, so it's timing needs to be JUST right to effectively be used, but given the server side lag this can easily cause problems.

I think a fair comparison of this ability is with PLD's Hollowed Ground. Both of which serve as "Oh s***" moment abilities to keep you alive through otherwise deadly situations. However Hollowed Ground is clearly the victor here in terms of usefulness. In fact often times in endgame progression a typical thing I hear is "At this point pop Hollowed Ground", due to it giving your healers 10 seconds to top off the tank using it, or 10 seconds to ignore them and heal everyone else.

Solutions
I think there are 2 routes this ability can go.

1. Go full defensive cooldown an d drop the bind/pull in

To do this change the effect of the immortality from 6 seconds to 10-15 seconds. Some might say this is too powerful, but keep in mind PLD get 10 seconds of NO damage, while all this would do is extend the time you can't die, however you WILL take damage and if you don't get enough heals you'll die immediately following Holmgang dropping.

-Another side option for this is change it to 10 seconds and include on the buff a mitigating factor. Making it so that the closer you are to death, the more damage reduction you get. The idea behind this being that you'll have a certain threshold that healers can keep you at while they scramble to keep you up.

2. Become a full on threat/positional management skill

Double the range of the pull in effect at least, so that we can more easily grab enemies. This would be immensely useful for caster mobs who don't like to easily move, and would be useful for enemies that spawn further away and allow us to not abandon the boss causing it to change positioning and potentially screwing up the damage potential of melee. They might also want to consider a little bit of a threat buff on this so that the drawn in enemy also gets a little bit of threat on them.

II. Inner Beast

The changes did help out giving WAR a DR, however it took away the healing mitigation feel of WAR. In some ways this feels like it was meant to be a nerf for 4 man and solo content.

There's 2 ways I could see this ability handled to adjust it a bit.

1. Revamp it to heal better

This would fit in line with WAR as a healing tank, mitigating the damage it takes through recovering health. Of course the way IB was wasn't enough for endgame content some some adjustments would need to be done.

-Increase healing potency to 200-300% of attack dealt.
300% might be a bit much, but at least 200% would help make this an ability that can functionally make the WAR able to recover some health.

-Add an over shield.
Make it so that any healing it would do beyond your max health, will instead act like a shield similar to SCH's adloquium. So that way overhealing isn't wasted on WAR and can be done to prevent damage as much as recover it.

-Add an additional effect to defiance.
One issue for healing vs straight DR was that in endgame DR scales better. One way to circumvent this I think would have an effect on defiance that would automatically add a stack of wrath for every X amount of damage received and can't occur more than once in Y seconds. Just as an example we'll say 10k damage will give you a new stack and this can only happen once every 6-10 seconds. In low man content you won't be hit as hard so the effects of this won't be quite as potent, however in EX and coil you can see this adding to your wrath stacks and allowing you to use IB more often. Simply put the idea behind this change would be take more damage = more chances to heal back damage.

2. Take IB off GCD

The main issue I have with IB currently is that it's clearly designed to be used before a big attack to get that 20% DR, which would be fine, but it's a GCD ability meaning timing it becomes more difficult than an off GCD ability. It results in a lot of awkward standing there not using an attack and lowering the overall performance that you bring by not generating threat, doing damage, or refreshing debuffs while anticipating an attack. Sure it's maybe just a wasted second here or there, but in a long fight it adds up, and all the while it's a performance issue no one else is faced with. It's clunky and takes away from the gameplay.

III. Foresight

This is widely regarded as a rather pointless cooldown. I've heard that it amounts to about a 7% DR at best. It seems to just be a spam every chance it's up sort of skill just to give you a small decrease in damage taken.

This is an ability I admit I don't have very good ideas on buffing it to make it useful, but not over powered. My biggest suggestion though would be to include a trait for MRD that extends the defense increase to magic defense as well, as it only adds to your physical defense currently; making it pointless for a number of fights or caster mobs. Also potentially increasing the % defense it enhances as well to make it a more potent cooldown.

IV. Changing it's subclass to LNC from PGL

This is probably the biggest change I could argue for the job. The reasoning behind this being that the LNC cross class skills better complement WAR than PGL does. Looking over PGL abilities they don't seem very useful compared to LNC.

PGL Cross class
-Featherfoot
Increased evasion is useful, but there is a little bit of an RNG component here without any other evasion on the WAR.

-Internal Release
Useful because it helps add to the WAR's already increased crit from wrath stacks as well as being only on a 60 second timer.

-Haymaker
I don't find this very useful, many enemies ignore slow and it's on GCD so it means less stacks of wrath to be built up and less damage from higher potency attacks.

-Mantra
5% healing only, kind of a joke and other abilities are far more useful.

-Second Wind
Even with berserk popped the amount of healing I get from this is rather low. It's also on a rather long timer.

LNC Cross class
(I'm only including the abilities that I think are the useful ones from this that over shadow the PGL cross class)

-Keen Flurry
40% more parry with an already high parry would make this a useful consistent cooldown for lowering damage a WAR takes. It would be comparable to PLD's Bulwark. And I think is far more useful than Featherfoot.

-Invigorate
Incredibly useful as WAR can drain their TP fast if they use a little too much overpower or fracture spam. It also provides WAR, the only job without any resource recovery, a means to recover their resources.

-Lifesurge
While not a cross class skill, it could potentially be changed to be cross class for WAR. It fits in quite well with the concept of WAR as a healing mitigation tank. It might not be as useful as the above 2 skills, but still provides options.

In general LNC would add more to WAR than PGL does. PGL feels more like extra abilities to use whenever, while LNC seems to add abilities that would have more strategic importance.

[Kitru]

I think there are 2 routes this ability can go.

The only route that it could go would be to go pure survivability CD unless the immortality function were shifted to some other ability, problem being that we don't really *have* an ability that it could be shifted to. The solution is less about fixing Holmgang and more about splitting Holmgang into 2 separate abilities with separate CDs and durations: put the pull/bind functionality on an ability with a 60-90 sec CD, 10-15y range, and 6 sec duration and put the immortality function on an ability with a 3 min CD and 10-15 sec duration. There's already precedent for a class getting 2 abilities at the same level so just provide both at 42 when you would get Holmgang.

There's 2 ways I could see this ability handled to adjust it a bit.

IB doesn't need to heal more. WARs are already pretty ridiculous for solo and 4 man content thanks to the existing level of self-heals. You're really just asking for WAR to get buffed when it really doesn't need to get buffed. Turning it into an abs shield makes it too strong since it's already supposed to be used before you take big damage; you'd be making it way better at the task that it's already ridiculously amazing at. Getting more Wrath stacks from taking damage would just be broken as hell, especially given that damage increases rapidly as you progress. You'd basically be increase Wrath stack generation by 33-50%, which means a commensurate increase in Wrath consumer usage, which is a significant increase in both damage and survivability. It also turns WARs into completely undisputed AoE kings since we could get Wrath stacks while spamming Overpower.

As to taking it off of the GCD, it would require reworking the ability (I did the math a few months back; iirc, you would need to pull damage down to 100 potency and increase healing to 300%) and would still increase the use rate regardless (since it's no longer taking up a GCD that can be used to generate Wrath). Having it on GCD increases the skill requirement to use it effectively.

III. Foresight

Foresight is weird because it's a painfully weak CD, but it's not like the WAR CD suite is all that weak. It could definitely do with some buffing, if only to have it apply to both mDef as well as def.

IV. Changing it's subclass to LNC from PGL

Basically, no, largely because WAR is fine where it is now. Yes, LNC would be more useful than PGL in general, but WAR is already plenty strong without getting the comparatively stronger cross-class suite from LNC (which, as should also be mentioned, would also include BfB which is most definitely *not* tanky). LNC would be more useful to PLD than MRD, but it's not likely to get that tweak. The same could be said of many of the cross class options for various jobs.

Also, Life Surge on a WAR would be broken as hell. Life Surge's heal is capped based upon max hp, which means that a DRG basically never gets all that much from it (they'll likely get more out of Second Wind). Considering WAR hp values, you'd basically be guaranteeing that WAR gets a 1k heal every 90-120 seconds on top of the insane enmity generation you'd afford us (BB crit = lawl enmity).

You're basically asking for a bunch of outright buffs to WAR when WAR and PLD are already in such a well balanced state that it's basically impossible to say which is the better tank in general. For WAR to get changes, they need to be mechanically justified. Holmgang and Foresight both have legitimate justifications because the former tries to do too much and ends up sucking at all of them and the latter is simply laughably weak. For everything else, your justification is basically "I want to be stronger because I don't think this aspect of WAR is strong enough".

There is *very* little about each tank that needs to be fixed. Both uber-CDs could stand to have the delay on their effect removed/shortened/fixed so that they're not completely wasted if you don't use it 2 seconds before you actually need it. PLD could use a legitimate low enmity combo and some fix to their AoE damage. WAR could use a fix to Foresight and Holmgang. Of those, the only real balance fix is for PLDs (AoE damage); everything else is just QoL *because the tanks are ridiculously well balanced*. There's no need for any buffing or nerfing of either.

[Huntington]

One thing I still find funny is that Holmgang is like the WAR's Tempered Will, except it works better. After trying and failing once on PLD, I found that Tempered Will which says prevents Knockbacks, doesn't at all for a Landslide. In Extreme the other day, I had the adds and because of my mistake on positioning one of them, I got some sludge on me and couldn't move out of the way of the other's Landslide. Good news though, was that Holmgang was up. It may not hold the mobs in place most of the time, but it sure did for me. Popped it, ate the Landslide with barely 1K damage, and prevented a full wipe from happening because of a mistake on my part because I was glued in place.

Someone suggested somewhere that it should drain HP from the target it's attached to, I think something like that could make it worthwhile, because the Bind in place can be a savior and a mistake depending on where you use it, I don't think that part of it should be taken out.

[Kitru]

One thing I still find funny is that Holmgang is like the WAR's Tempered Will, except it works better.

I seriously have no idea what you're smoking. Tempered Will works on everything that Holmgang does while lasting longer, not requiring a target, activating faster, and letting you move for the duration. I just tested it against Landslide in Titan EX, and I didn't move at all. Assuming you actually did activate it rather than simply thinking you activated it, you likely activated it too late because, like most CDs in ARR, there's a delay from when you activate it and when you actually get the buff.

[Sibyll]

Overall I think that Warriors are fine as is. The only mechanical changes I'd really want to see would be to have some kind of critical hit based proc because the Critical Chance from Defiance seems out place and doesn't really build off of anything. It's just there.

As for Holmgang I've always juggled around the idea that maybe the Warrior could get healed for some percentage of the damage received during the duration of the effect at the end of Holmgang. I'm not sure if this would be at all balanced, but I'd think that receiving a heal based on damage taken during it's effect would be a bit more comparable to being completely invulnerable and it'd make the skill a little easier to use. I agree the first step to improving Holmgang is to split it into two skills. As of right now, I rarely use this skill.

As for the cross class skill suggestions, I'm actually fine with Pugilist. Warrior actually has a few viable CC skill builds depending on what they want to provide the group with. Some of the classes don't even have CC options because it's so blatantly obvious which skills they are going to take, but this is more of any issue with the CC system and not specifically with the classes themselves.

[Huntington]

I seriously have no idea what you're smoking. Tempered Will works on everything that Holmgang does while lasting longer, not requiring a target, activating faster, and letting you move for the duration. I just tested it against Landslide in Titan EX, and I didn't move at all. Assuming you actually did activate it rather than simply thinking you activated it, you likely activated it too late because, like most CDs in ARR, there's a delay from when you activate it and when you actually get the buff.

Possibly, it was a long time ago and I rarely use Paladin anymore. Just saw someone pop it in HM the other day and say it failed, guess it was late for both times. No need to be a dick about it.

[Coth_X]

As for Holmgang I've always juggled around the idea that maybe the Warrior could get healed for some percentage of the damage received during the duration of the effect at the end of Holmgang. I'm not sure if this would be at all balanced, but I'd think that receiving a heal based on damage taken during it's effect would be a bit more comparable to being completely invulnerable and it'd make the skill a little easier to use. I agree the first step to improving Holmgang is to split it into two skills. As of right now, I rarely use this skill.

Not that they need the hate generation, but what if a heal taken from holmgang resulted in increased enmity or something to that effect? Wouldn't have to be big, but could give us a reason to use it in normal dungeons where oh shit times shouldn't be happening anyways.

I honestly don't think I've ever used it intentionally as of yet.

[Rufalus]

Lancer's invigorate would be very helpful indeed. Wouldn't need to think about TP again.

[Alphras]

What would be the point of a resource system if you don't need to worry about it? I think we have a pretty strong cross class skill selection (compared to the paladin). Leave it as it is.

Edit: But i like the idea of mdef on Foresight. Would give the Paladin a decent cross class skill too.

[Coth_X]

What would be the point of a resource system if you don't need to worry about it? I think we have a pretty strong cross class skill selection (compared to the paladin). Leave it as it is.

Edit: But i like the idea of mdef on Foresight. Would give the Paladin a decent cross class skill too.

By that logic, we should take away pld's riot combo since it restores the resource they use for aoe hate. War uses TP for everything, and it wouldn't hurt having it as an option.

Though I can manage my tp, I'd like to have that one ability as a cross class skill over pld flash :/ and I still don't quite get why we get monk's featherfoot, but we don't get lancer's feint.