Why does Clemency get interrupted? And why does Sword/Shield Oath reset combo?

[Syzygian]

snip

These are valid points on paper but rarely a disadvantage in practice. When I alt-raid on WAR, compared to DRK, its a complete easy-mode snoozefest as far as stance dancing and the sheer number of buttons that need to be pushed.

The thing is, IB is so fucking worth the sacrifices you make for it. Its readily at your finger tips and stacking it with any *ONE* of WAR's other significant cooldowns (RI, ToB, Vengeance, hell even Foresight paired with a well timed Equilibrium) means you essentially have a huge tankbuster CD combo every 30-40s.

IB+RI - 30s - IB+ToB - 30s - IB+Ve - 30s - IB+RI - 30s - IB+whatever is left - 30s - IB+ToB - 30s - IB+RI - 30s - IB+Ve - 30s - etc. etc. ad nauseam. In between all of these they still have Zerk+Bloodbath, Conva, perhaps Foresight+Awareness, Second Wind, and every other Equilibrium, and extra IBs.

When people harp in-game on how well designed WAR is as opposed to using the term "overpowered" I instantly ask if they have every tank leveled and if they honestly don't feel like WAR is straight-up easy-mode on almost any fight in comparison. PLD is just a straight up struggle, and playing DRK correctly is like playing a DPS and a tank at the same time in terms of the number of fucking buttons you need to press ALLL the time. (Although in my opinion DRK feels the most -actually- balanced because I feel like it has the same degree of challenges balanced with power and advantages as most other non-tank jobs...) With WAR you have a cooldown for anything and everything and it just feels like minimal work needs to be done to survive. Even hopping into Deliverance while MTing for a triple cleave, you'll have RI and Vengeance up so even though you're out of Defiance you've got a 30% damage reduction going +100% parry rate, and these instances are planned around the pacing of the encounter so if a WAR is ever without one of those CDs for an upcoming tankbuster cause they were triple cleaving earlier, its the player and not the job.

It can do everything and it can do it so EASILY. I don't even play on my WAR that much, but whenever I do its like riding a bike it immediately comes back and its like "psh, i got this" whereas on DRK its like riding a bucking bronco (which is awesome in its own way) and PLD is just... annoying because the job is designed to play suboptimally because of enmity issues of all things.

[SpookyGhost]

The reason it's more of a struggle to play PLD/DRK in current content than WAR is because mitigation in the current raid is such a joke that you can wear near full STR and run DPS stance 99% of the time while 1-2 healers DPS. PLD/DRK have access to their full kit and nothing really changes for them in this meta, whereas WAR rarely if ever needs to IB or stay in Defiance for more than a few GCDs to run out Unchained. IB is great, but in the current meta it's only use is when Unchained is up if IB is even necessary (so early progression and some points in A3S/A4S still).

[Syzygian]

The reason it's more of a struggle to play PLD/DRK in current content than WAR is because mitigation in the current raid is such a joke that you can wear near full STR and run DPS stance 99% of the time while 1-2 healers DPS. PLD/DRK have access to their full kit and nothing really changes for them in this meta, whereas WAR rarely if ever needs to IB or stay in Defiance for more than a few GCDs to run out Unchained. IB is great, but in the current meta it's only use is when Unchained is up if IB is even necessary (so early progression and some points in A3S/A4S still).

I've been wondering this for a while now but never got around to asking, why is the current raid tier considered a "joke"?

From what I've observed, people are stating that it just doesn't hit hard enough. But shit hits for 25-50K (tankbusters/cleaves anyway). Where does this school of thought come from? I raided on DPS for the most part in 2.x, was it not possible to stance dance in between TBs there? Why is there this attitude that Savage bosses hit like a wet noodle even though every single tank that has been in Savage has been 1-shot by each boss during progression and tank busters will 1-shot you if you don't mitigate them just like in every other raid?

If its not because of the "low damage" then what is it? It can't be mechanics/DPS checks because that's why almost the entire playerbase hasn't cleared, and certainly a much larger percentage than had never cleared scob/fcob when they were relevant. Anyway I'm curious, and I've never gotten a straight answer, someone please enlighten me.

[Freyyy]

From what I've observed, people are stating that it just doesn't hit hard enough. But shit hits for 25-50K (tankbusters/cleaves anyway). Where does this school of thought come from? I raided on DPS for the most part in 2.x, was it not possible to stance dance in between TBs there? Why is there this attitude that Savage bosses hit like a wet noodle even though every single tank that has been in Savage has been 1-shot by each boss during progression and tank busters will 1-shot you if you don't mitigate them just like in every other raid?

This school is bullshit honestly. I was raiding as a tank (did both WAR and PLD in every fight, but WAR main) in 2.X, and FFXIV's bosses have always hit like wet noodles outside of tank busters like they do now. In BCoB it was kinda hard hitting, like T1 when the boss started to get very mad and hitting harder and harder, T4 where you had to be a turtle to tank Dreadnoughts, T5 where there was a tankbuster every 35 seconds (YES 35 SECONDS) with many hard-hitting cleaves and auto-attacks in between. SCoB bosses started to hit like wet noodles. And that's where I started to tank aggressively. Giving up Fending accessories, starting to stance-dance while tanking, I remember how Melusine was doing pityful damage on the MT, how T6 was a joke, how T9 was only scripted burst moments with a lot of possibilities to safely drop Defiance while MTing, only T8 was kinda brutal on the MT. Then came FCoB, which was honestly exactly like Alex Savage currently is in terms of MT damage. After having acquired some gear, you were able to tank almost 100% of the time without your tanking stance except for T13 (which was incredibly fun to MT as a WAR btw, it required a lot of skill to perfectly manage your stacks in order to IB every single Flare Breaths AND Flattens). T12 only hit hard during Bennu phase and that was mitigated a LOT when you started to have enough DPS to push 4 Bennus, and later 3, which literally broke the phase. Other than that, only needed Defiance once every 2min to take a Revelation. T11 was almost completely DPS-stance tank-able as long as you were managing your CDs properly. T10 was a joke.

Tanks being able to stance-dance that much and wearing a lot of STR because the damage directed to them is too low is absolutely not a new thing, in fact, hard-hitting fights have always been very rare in this game since SCoB. It's just that before 3.0, high tank DPS wasn't required like it is now, and aggressive tanking was a niche while the vast majority of players were full VIT tanks and still cleared the DPS checks without issue. But groups with high tank DPS were able to accomplish faster clears, faster phase-pushing, making all fights easier. That's the reason why Yoshi decided to tune Alex Savage with tank DPS in mind, and that led us to the current tank mentality.

[SpookyGhost]

Ok. Sure. Let's just pretend like Phoenix and Bahamut didn't auto for literally the same amount that bosses in Alexander Savage do at level 60 with more Def/MDef, more HP, more healing, and stronger regens. Blah blah blah "tank busters hit so hard always!", you cry. Welcome to 2.0, wherein every tank buster ever has been the thing you mitigate always every single time 24/7. Do you know what you used to mitigate every tank buster in? Tank stance + CDs. Do you know what you mitigate it in now? DPS stance + CDs. Do you know why? Because a crit auto could kill you with low gear and a solid CD. That literally can not even happen now. It's insane how easy all these turns are as a tank even compared to T12 and 13 which weren't exactly grade school maths level of difficult.

Freyyy says he started playing more aggressively in SCoB, stance dancing and wearing more STR/Melded. Good! Yes! That's how it should be. Do you know what no longer exists now? Stance dancing. You start in your tank stance and you're out of it for the rest of the fight. Why?

But honestly sure, yeah, totally the same, whatever I can't be bothered.

[Syzygian]

snip

I guess I should have phrased myself better, my question really just amounts to "what constitutes a joke to the rest of the tanking meta? And why do we call it a joke?" It seems like there's been plenty of lethal or borderline lethal damage throughout all the fights in the last 3 raid tiers (was late for BCoB). Without an explanation for this I've always just shrugged and thought it was people talking big. I mean yeah, you can wear melds/STR and drop tank stance half the time but you still have to mitigate things in some fashion, no free lunch there, unless your healers are straight-up carrying you. When we didn't overgear this content were people still loling at the damage? Were server/world first people as unimpressed and jaded as we seem to be?

But honestly sure, yeah, totally the same, whatever I can't be bothered.

Bruh, at least taste your food before reaching for the salt.

[Freyyy]

snip

Wow. I said that the current level of Alexander Savage tank damage started in FCoB. That's true. During progression, yeah we were playing more "turtle-y" than during Alex Savage progression, but after having gathered some gear, it was just like it is now in Savage. My PLD mate MTed T10 without using Shield Oath at all. Critical Rip was completely survivable with DPS stance + CD. We did it numerous time, and that was way before the echo. T11 was the same, no need for tanking stance even for heads and cleaves. T12 wasn't hitting THAT hard, seriously. Auto attacks could get some high crits, but it was completely survivable out of Defiance, again, I've done it, and before even 2.5, hunt upgraded gear and all that silly stuff. Only the Bennu phase and the tank busters were really threatening, but with a Revelation only every 60 seconds and a forced tank-swap, you had Vengeance up for each of them as a WAR, on top of Unchained thus permitting to go Defiance for an IB without losing a single bit of DPS (since there was no Deliverance back in the days), a piece of cake. ONLY T13 was not a joke damage wise. T13 was actually hitting HARD on the tank and was very punishing if you didn't mitigate properly.

From BCoB to FCoB, MT-intended damage slowly started to become lower and lower, it's not just new in Savage. That was my whole point. People starting to say that "Alexander Savage hits so low on tanks, it's so easy to tank in DPS stance blablablah" are just wrong. It doesn't come from Alex Savage. It comes from the whole encounter design and slowly became like that over time.

[Februs]

It can't be mechanics/DPS checks because that's why almost the entire playerbase hasn't cleared, and certainly a much larger percentage than had never cleared scob/fcob when they were relevant.

Honestly, this is probably exactly the reason right here. The problem with Savage content is not that it is hard on the Tank. The problem is finding 7 other players who are not pants on head stupid and fail at the mechs/Dps checks. This is not a new problem. It's been around forever.

If we're looking at mechs, though, then there is a difference. By comparison, the Mechs of Savage Alexander are substantially simpler than ... well, almost all of the Coils (T3 and 4 being exceptions), to be honest. Even T6 had more complicated mechanics than "kite resin puddle to edge. Continue Dps. Rinse. Repeat. Don't die. Done," and that was easily cleared with PUGs back in the day. Getting a Dps group who can meet these simple requests while outputting maximum Dps is like winning the lottery (unless you have a static, that is), and that is the problem.

Also, there is the added issue of nerfed difficulty. Keep in mind that we're comparing Savage Alexander to Normal Coils, and that the Coils were hit with extreme nerfs when they were thrown out into the DF. If you ever ran Second Coil before it was in the DF, you'd know that several of the mechanics were one hit wonders. Didn't turn away for petrify? Dead. Let they cyclops get too close? Dead. Didn't stop attacking during T6 spore move? Dead. Didn't kill a bulb fast enough before it got to growth phase 2? Dead. Miss pretty much any mechanic in T9? Dead. Etc, and this was all considered Normal difficulty.

If you're looking specifically at Tank Busters, than even those have changed. Almost all of the Tank Busters in HW hit hard, sure, but they're basically one and done hits. They did not hit with the same frequency or follow up as the Coils. In T5 you literally did not have enough CD's to mitigate all of the Tank Busters. T9 actually hit at the same frequency, only it was less noticeable because the boss rotation was interrupted more frequently. That being said, Nael followed up every one of her TB's with a second TB that was magic based. You got hit twice. Once the healers figured it out it was nothing to sweat over, but you could say the same for any mech, really. T6? When it was still PF locked you had to Tank swap to handle the frequency of those hits. Not even an option. A single Tank could not do it.

Now, does any of this make Savage somehow easier than the original Coils? Not really no. But I think that the learning curve was higher for the original Coil fights, and there are a lot of sub-par players out there who did not learn those fights thinking they can walk into Savage and make it out okay.

[winsock]

If a war sits on their stacks in deliverance, it's a dps loss by not fell cleaving, but if you misjudge and use stacks, you won't be able to get the mitigation from IB on stance change, potentially killing you.
^ you gotta make this call ~8 cooldowns max in advance

To avoid a dps penalty, pld needs to anticipate a max of 3 cooldowns, and if you misjudge, you *might* take a dps hit...
QQ combo break.

[Reynhart]

To avoid a dps penalty, pld needs to anticipate a max of 3 cooldowns, and if you misjudge, you *might* take a dps hit...

What nonsense is that ?