New Prelim Tank updates

[Syzygian]

Damn, now that I imagine that... it'd be really awesome on a Berserker/Reaver, if not on a Warrior itself... But that aside,

What were you looking for for DRK? I too don't really think the TP adjustments did a damn thing, but what then would have?

DRK needed a pinch more physical mitigation, perhaps a buff to Dark Dance, and it needed a reason to ever ever be brought to a raid as an OT. Whether that's buffing Delirium outside of Grit, giving a slashing debuff or hell even a magic defense debuff, making Sole Survivor a TP/MP refresh out of Grit when cast on a party member, whatever, there's any number of things they could have done that they didn't. DRK is a Delirium bitch in the OT role, and it actually can potentially do LESS damage in that slot than it could have MTing.

No tank reasonably competes WAR for the OT slot (or even the MT slot if the WAR really wants to take that too). That's the problem, and these changes have left that pretty well untouched.

Edit: The only thing I can see is that DRK MT/PLD OT might have just become a PINCH more viable, depending on how helpful PLD's utilities wind up being in the new raids, but then you still need a NIN, and one that you have to ask to do a suboptimal rotation at that.

[Shurrikhan]

DRK needed a pinch more physical mitigation, perhaps a buff to Dark Dance, and it needed a reason to ever ever be brought to a raid as an OT. Whether that's buffing Delirium outside of Grit, giving a slashing debuff or hell even a magic defense debuff, making Sole Survivor a TP/MP refresh out of Grit when cast on a party member, whatever, there's any number of things they could have done that they didn't. DRK is a Delirium bitch in the OT role, and it actually can potentially do LESS damage in that slot than it could have MTing.

No tank reasonably competes WAR for the OT slot (or even the MT slot if the WAR really wants to take that too). That's the problem, and these changes have left that pretty well untouched.

Reprisal without parry activation seems to be one of the highly requested changes. As long as it does require that that though, Dark Dance being buffed to, say, 40%, and DA-Dark Dance doubling parry strength would probably be a fair improvement, especially against anything that can't be dodged but can be parried. Natural parry scaling buff might also help... Delirium actually giving <Blunt Resistance Down> so that DRK, although even more the Delirium bitch, wouldn't be put out of use by a Monk seems to be another. Shifting a bit of strength further from Blood Price to Blood Weapon might help OT dps as well, but then we'd curse the change every AoE pull or when you need back to back DA-defensives with oGCDs ready as MT...

I don't know, there seem to be a lot of options, and yet I've no idea why any of the changes picked were chosen. DRKs suffering less TP-wise than PLD, yet now has the lower average TP costs as well. The weaponskills chosen for them don't seem to make sense either, especially given that our enmity will likely have been reduced with the stat changes, which means more enmity combos. ...Which in turn means a larger TP gap between MT and OT DRKs. I thought we'd be getting some QoL changes, maybe some faint mana cost decreases to improve output, and something to boost OT utility, but instead we get 'decreased TP consumption when enmity's not a factor'.

[Ashkendor]

That was with the STR meta, we still have no idea how the tank rebalancing will play out with the vit changes. So to soon to say that.

Though depending on fights moving forward it feels like PLD/DRK are situational while War can mitigate magic/physical equally well.

It wasn't just a STR meta though. The fact that WAR brings the only slashing resist debuff still makes them preferable over the other two tanks. That's still something that needs to be remedied imo. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the changes are bad by any means. They're a great start, but basically WAR is still almost guaranteed a slot in a raid team and all that's happened is that PLD has been made at least somewhat competitive with DRK for the remaining tank slot.

[FallenWings]

It wasn't just a STR meta though. The fact that WAR brings the only slashing resist debuff still makes them preferable over the other two tanks. That's still something that needs to be remedied imo. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the changes are bad by any means. They're a great start, but basically WAR is still almost guaranteed a slot in a raid team and all that's happened is that PLD has been made at least somewhat competitive with DRK for the remaining tank slot.

Dancing Edge exists.
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Dancing_Edge

It's mostly just their overall toolkit rather than a singular skill. The WAR toolkit for the most part is universally better in most situations than DRK/PLD in addition to just flat out complimenting them both. It really doesn't help that DRK only wants to be MT to be at its peak and PLD's overall toolkit is far too situational versus flat 10% Damage Down.

Stackable with Reprisal, Rage of Halone, Delirium and Dragon Kick.


At all times.

Top it off with universally better defensive cooldowns for frequent spike damage, actually useable self heals, balls to the walls AoE damage, burst style damage which is probably the best style, and a piss easy damage ceiling that doesn't require anything other than the WAR's own personal input. WAR is everyone's friend.

I've never seen job changes show up in the full patch notes that weren't in the preliminary notes, so I think this is it.

Hrm... I don't feel like it's enough from just eyeballing it. Perhaps I just set my expectations too high for "big PLD changes".

[Ashkendor]

Dancing Edge exists.
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Dancing_Edge

I'm aware Dancing Edge is a thing. I guess I missed the part where Ninja is a tank now? >_>

If it wasn't clear from my post, I was talking exclusively about tank utility. Forcing a PLD/DRK composition to take a NIN (who is also automatically taking a DPS loss just so they can keep Dancing Edge up) doesn't seem reasonable at all to me when you can just swap out either the PLD or DRK for a WAR instead. Not only do you get higher OT damage, you get the slashing debuff too.

Hrm... I don't feel like it's enough from just eyeballing it. Perhaps I just set my expectations too high for "big PLD changes".

Pretty much. Either WAR needs beat with the nerf stick or PLD (and possibly DRK?) needs more changes.

[AyoAvacado]

Very nice changes so far, but it leaves me to wonder....in the 3.2 Trailer @4:50 untill 5:01 you can see the DRK popping what seems like shadowskin and it leaves a Decoy while he moves to the side. i wonder if that was just a glitch or if DRKs are going to get a Decoy skill. didn't see it in the prelim notes anywhere.

[Dement]

Very nice changes so far, but it leaves me to wonder....in the 3.2 Trailer @4:50 untill 5:01 you can see the DRK popping what seems like shadowskin and it leaves a Decoy while he moves to the side. i wonder if that was just a glitch or if DRKs are going to get a Decoy skill. didn't see it in the prelim notes anywhere.

That seems to be a boss mechanic rather than a player ability. It also seems to happen to the MNK too.

[AyoAvacado]

That seems to be a boss mechanic rather than a player ability. It also seems to happen to the MNK too.

Awww that would have been a great skill to have lol

[Zadist]

Very nice changes so far, but it leaves me to wonder....in the 3.2 Trailer @4:50 untill 5:01 you can see the DRK popping what seems like shadowskin and it leaves a Decoy while he moves to the side. i wonder if that was just a glitch or if DRKs are going to get a Decoy skill. didn't see it in the prelim notes anywhere.

It is a boss mechanic. The dark just happened to be using a buff when it happened. It happens with the mnk as well.

[Syzygian]

I've never seen job changes show up in the full patch notes that weren't in the preliminary notes, so I think this is it.