I quit

[Kabooa]

There wont ever be anything like Unchained And/or Berserk +Blood Bath + Overpower Spam on a group of foes.

Not sure about DRK, but PLD can heal themselves for so much more with Clemency.

I never miss any of this on boss fights, but I sure miss it in large spawn piles.

Having just got Dark to 70, Blackest Night is pretty sweet. Don't have to heal damage you don't take.

[Yallaid]

.... Are you a SMN? Because I can assure you, as a SMN main, the changes they made to Aethertrail stacks not having a count down has been nothing but a blessing. I no longer have to worry about stacks dropping between mobs or while dodging boss mechanics. It's annoying that I can't refresh aetherflow while in dreadwyrm trance (I used to in order to shave off a few extra seconds of cooldown time)... Or more specifically, it's annoying that you can still refresh it, but all it does is put Aetherflow into cooldown without giving you anything for it. XP But the fact is, that is something I will eventually train myself to avoid doing.

All of my damage got nerfed, but it's a lot more sustained than it used to be, cooldowns are shorter, I don't lose a sh*t ton of damage if I mess up and time Painflare poorly, or if the tank isn't speedrunning... Honestly I think you picked one of the worst classes for an example, there are very few SMNs I know that're dissatisfied with the changes. Our biggest complaint is the loss of Sustain for Titan-egi in solo content lol.

Haha, no I don't play SMN I main healer. But my co-DPS plays SMN exclusively and I know for a fact that they would blow a gasket if I showed them your post. They have been complaining my ear off since SB release (and a little before tbh) in pretty much every instance we've run together. Apparently now when you're at 3 Aethertrail it is impossible to gain Aetherflow, and so it's impossible to use any Aetherflow reliant spells until you go into Dreadwyrm trance and complete that whole part of your cycle. I heard them say that the class seems to work correctly up to 50, but once they introduce Aethertrail stacks it becomes frustrating and restrictive compared to how it used to play.

I'm not going to show them your post though so they can follow up to clarify because I value my own peace of mind at home. I will just say, it may be a minority of SMN's that aren't happy -- but boy are they unhappy.

I don't think that's something that should happen following a class re-balance.

[YitharV2]

There wont ever be anything like Unchained And/or Berserk +Blood Bath + Overpower Spam on a group of foes.

Not sure about DRK, but PLD can heal themselves for so much more with Clemency.

I never miss any of this on boss fights, but I sure miss it in large spawn piles.

Unchained is useless at 70 though anyways since it shares a cooldown with Inner Release.



I do say I miss the synergy between offense and defense, and I wish they kept Bloodbath, but I'd also say Warrior is still viable nonetheless. It just depends a bit more on your healer now. My reason for not playing it anymore is just that it isn't fun for me anymore, rather than it not being viable.

[Ogulbuk]

I do say I miss the synergy between offense and defense, and I wish they kept Bloodbath, but I'd also say Warrior is still viable nonetheless. It just depends a bit more on your healer now.

So you just addressed the point I originally replied to:

Assuming good cooldown usage, not much has changed in terms of tank survivability (besides stuff hitting harder), so I'm not sure what you're saying about having issues to keep them alive?

I don't deny it's viable, but now the healers do have to work harder at keeping warriors alive than they used to.

[YitharV2]

So you just addressed the point I originally replied to:

I don't deny it's viable, but now the healers do have to work harder at keeping warriors alive than they used to.

I mean, maybe my perspective is wrong, but I've felt that healers still needed to heal me with Unchained+Bloodbath+Berserk. What made a real difference was switching to Deliverance and combining it with Vengeance, and using 2x Decimate (which has 2x the potency of Overpower), but I kind of have to admit that was overpowered compared to the other 2 tanks.

I've healed all 3 tanks this expansion and I don't feel much of a difference between the 3. And I think that's what SE wants.

[Lannybaby]

It seems the consensus is that the tank changes primarily affected the end-game raiders - the ones who try to maximize dps while tanking. Unfortunate as it is, the fact of the matter is that tanks are not damage dealers. They hold enmity and cycle between their defensive skills, depending on the situation, so they don't give healers a hard time. Healers already have their hands full handling the squishy dps - they don't need another headache from a war who tanks in deliverance 100% of the time, or a drk who refuses to turn on grit.

I'm a very casual tank player. I did end game raids (extreme/savage) in ARR and HW, but I was always the kind of tank who prioritized staying alive (and holding enmity, of course) over dealing as much damage as I can. To the tanks who want to go above and beyond, cool, but note that your dps is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. You'll end the encounter, maybe a couple of minutes faster. Big deal.

[Yallaid]

It seems the consensus is that the tank changes primarily affected the end-game raiders - the ones who try to maximize dps while tanking. Unfortunate as it is, the fact of the matter is that tanks are not damage dealers. They hold enmity and cycle between their defensive skills, depending on the situation, so they don't give healers a hard time. Healers already have their hands full handling the squishy dps - they don't need another headache from a war who tanks in deliverance 100% of the time, or a drk who refuses to turn on grit.

I'm a very casual tank player. I did end game raids (extreme/savage) in ARR and HW, but I was always the kind of tank who prioritized staying alive (and holding enmity, of course) over dealing as much damage as I can. To the tanks who want to go above and beyond, cool, but note that your dps is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. You'll end the encounter, maybe a couple of minutes faster. Big deal.

I've never felt like this was an accurate take away from situations like this.

Many many low-med tier players, people who run a lot of 4-man and maybe up to EX trials, pattern themselves after the play-styles established by their high-end peers. There's a lot of enjoyment to be had realizing that there is a higher level to strive for and attempting it on your own, even if you're not hardcore enough to truly play your class perfectly.

What I hear from the end-game tanks who dislike some of the recent changes is that it lowers the ceiling for them to excel. This kind of problem persists downwards, even if you don't need to micromanage your job and excel in order to get through a 4-man leveling roulette, the potential to strive for that level of play remains appealing to many players.


The reality seems to be -- fewer players are queuing as Tanks since the release of SB -- that very necessarily means that it is not a problem exclusive to the end-game community. It's an issue that affects all of us playing the game together.

[YitharV2]

To the tanks who want to go above and beyond, cool, but note that your dps is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. You'll end the encounter, maybe a couple of minutes faster. Big deal.

I wish people would stop bringing up DPS because that's not the concern of most of us. As this comment says, some people are missing the point. It's only really important to end-game raiders. I mean if you have fun spamming your AoE enmity skills and sitting in tank stance, more power to you, but a lot of us don't find that fun and engaging gameplay.

[Yallaid]

To the tanks who want to go above and beyond, cool, but note that your dps is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. You'll end the encounter, maybe a couple of minutes faster. Big deal.

I can't help it -- I feel obligated to reply to this little snippet entirely on its own merits.

I don't understand why you're so dismissive of a Tank contributing to a 2ish minute faster clear time. That seems like a really significant effect for one player's efforts and I don't know why we would celebrate a change that removes that element from the game.

I can assure you, there is someone out there for whom that 2 minute faster clear is the holy grail, optimizing their performance towards that goal is their entire reason for playing and feeling motivated to play. In other words, it absolutely is a Big Deal to somebody out there, why do you dismiss their point of view so casually?

[SeriousxSarcasm]

Haha, no I don't play SMN I main healer. But my co-DPS plays SMN exclusively and I know for a fact that they would blow a gasket if I showed them your post. They have been complaining my ear off since SB release (and a little before tbh) in pretty much every instance we've run together. Apparently now when you're at 3 Aethertrail it is impossible to gain Aetherflow, and so it's impossible to use any Aetherflow reliant spells until you go into Dreadwyrm trance and complete that whole part of your cycle. I heard them say that the class seems to work correctly up to 50, but once they introduce Aethertrail stacks it becomes frustrating and restrictive compared to how it used to play.
snip.

XD I know we all have specific preferences. It sounds like they're just having trouble adapting. The rotation is just subtly different. 50 ARR SMN you spent your stacks slowly and wisely (often spread out over the 60 second cooldown for aetherflow), assuming there wasn't something you needed a burst for. 60 HW SMN saw that change. You had to spend stacks quickly to build Aethertrail stacks, which were on count down, so the goal was to spend quickly in order to get into dreadwyrm on time (often having to take a dps loss in order to get the most potency you could). Current SMN they brought back the strategic part in lvl 50 SMN. You no longer have to ham-hand your way to Dreadwyrm, your aether abilities have lower cool down, and you don't lose stacks over time. It leaves a lot more room to strategize.

It's much simpler. Get your 3 aethertrail stacks, spend them to get into dreadwyrm (did they used to just let them expire before? o.O ). Mash out your dreadwyrm rotation, then refresh Aetherflow and start again. Then of course at 70 it throws in bahamut, which really doesn't change the rotation too much.

Edit: but anyway, I feel like we got off topic. XD Suffice to say, I think a lot of changes have happened to everyone's Job. Some are just adapting better than others, and we should wait and see how it all feels once these knee-jerk reactions die down.