Paladin too overpowered, nerf their damage output!

[VargasVermillion]

video games are based on a logic that doesn't defy basic physic rules

Are you really sure about that? Most players don't go wtf because most players don't know how real world melee combat works or they simply suspend their disbelief because it's a video game.

[MauvaisOeil]

Hence "basic".

Shield = defense
Two handed = heavy hits
Dual wield = fast hits.

Even ff sum up that way, dragoon having a damage buff, nin and monk a speed buff (damage for monks too, I agree).

But tanks now feel a bit less that scheme since 4.0 with wars having a weaker damage mod on berzerk, more oGCD than they used to have, changing it's pace to a less slugish hard hitter.

[Lyth]

A shield doubles up as a defensive and offensive tool, especially when the shield in question is a massive tower shield. It's a blunt force weapon that can also be used to suppress an assailant to the ground. Remember, the Sultansworn started out as elite bodyguards.

Likewise, Cecil was an offensive powerhouse, regardless of whether he was DRK or PLD. I like that they moved away from "PLD is the defensive tank", because this mindset led to a lot of balance problems. PLD is in a good place right now. The problem is that WAR is overtuned and DRK is undertuned.

[MauvaisOeil]

War still miss some sort of utility, even if you like to think that them being a few % ahead is "overtuned".

Whatever, you spread what you want to spread even if it is only to achieve a false common sense.

I however agree that drk is missing a few cards to be as functionnal and as interesting to play.

And about shields, a tower shield is quite massive to wield and lead to poor agressivity. A round and spiked shield however.... but the pld only has two moves tied to shield attack. What if zealous blade was instead a shield bash ?

[VargasVermillion]

Counter attacking is something that would work well with a shield based playstyle but in that situation PLD would technically have more damage 'potential' than the other two tanks, while actually tanking which like many combat situations in this game taken into real world logic wouldn't be nearly as effective with an axe or a great sword making either argument moot. The actual problem with making tanks noticeably weaker than each other is that they become undesirable if they can't meet a decent damage threshold. Defensive utilities have short term usefulness.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Counter attacking is something that would work well with a shield based playstyle but in that situation PLD would technically have more damage 'potential' than the other two tanks, while actually tanking which like many combat situations in this game taken into real world logic wouldn't be nearly as effective with an axe or a great sword making either argument moot. The actual problem with making tanks noticeably weaker than each other is that they become undesirable if they can't meet a decent damage threshold. Defensive utilities have short term usefulness.

Uhm... Shield Swipe?

[VargasVermillion]

Uhm... Shield Swipe?

Uhm....duhh? one ability isn't a playstyle, not even two abilities make a playstyle.

[Lyth]

War still miss some sort of utility, even if you like to think that them being a few % ahead is "overtuned".

People have a very vague sense of what "utility" entails. In HW, DRK was the most mobile tank with Plunge, and PLD had the best knockback negation with Tempered Will. Now, WAR has the best gap closer, with both a longer range and half the recast, and also has a built in and better Tempered Will effect in Inner Release with a minute shorter recast and double the duration. The problem is that we keep taking unique abilities on other jobs which contribute to their overall flavour and bring them over to WAR in a more powerful format. Many of these abilities function like a Swiss Army knife, with multiple effects baked into a single skill. It wasn't enough to copy over Invigorate as Equilibrium, for example. It has half the recast and can be turned into a 1200 potency oGCD self heal with no cost.

It's kind of funny that we keep revisiting the issue of WAR being too flexible and too adaptable at the end of every expansion, but we keep copying over and piling on the utility. An ability like Shake it off would have stayed on as a permanent ability on any other job. Have you seen Sole Survivor? Have you seen Blood Price? Yet if there is a single ability on WAR's list that doesn't have 15 different functions and a built in GPS, Menphina help us all, the sky is falling, WAR has no utility.

If we get through this expansion without WAR getting a Cover clone (because everyone needs one of those now, even if the average WAR wouldn't have the faintest idea of how to use it if it doesn't affect their dps), a Divine Veil clone, and the ability to throw Fell Cleave from range, I would very much be surprised. At least in HW, for all of its balance problems, we were upfront and honest about how powerful WAR was. It would be nice to see balance measures that were implemented to fix this last for more than the first three weeks of an expansion. Even the "superior design" meme, as overbearing as it was, is better than this new "no utility" one.

...

I'm not sure how implement this fairly, but I would like to see more combat abilities on PLD that incorporate your shield. Perhaps they could be tied in to gauge usage or gauge building.

[AziraSyuren]

snip

There's actually no way someone can be this wrong without either being purposefully misleading or solely motivated by bitterness from HW WAR.

In HW, DRK was the most mobile tank with Plunge

That mobility was almost entirely irrelevant. Plunge is a skill you use on CD for DPS. It was almost never up when you would otherwise need it, and it's worth too much DPS (3.5% in HW, about 2.8% now) to hold for more than a few seconds, especially considering sprint doesn't use TP anymore.

and PLD had the best knockback negation with Tempered Will

How is that utility relevant in the slightest? It didn't work on all fights where it should've (Sephirot), but worked where it was completely irrelevant (Sophia). Calling it utility, especially meaningful utility that should be taken into account when deciding the viability of a class, is completely dishonest. It's more relevant now thanks to fight design, admittedly, but even then, it's something WAR doesn't actually have in practice, as I'll cover below.

Now, WAR has the best gap closer, with both a longer range and half the recast

I'll give you that. Onslaught is definitely not as bad as everyone initially thought it was, and its lower damage combined with its BG cost means it can actually be held without losing upwards of 100~ DPS.

and also has a built in and better Tempered Will effect in Inner Release with a minute shorter recast and double the duration

It's the same problem as Plunge, in that it's a DPS increase that's used on cooldown. That's not "anti-KB utility," because it can't actually be utilized to negate KB when it matters. In fact, its KB resistance is actually actively detrimental in certain fights, such as Catastrophe, whereas Tempered Will is something you can save for when it'd be useful.

It wasn't enough to copy over Invigorate as Equilibrium, for example. It has half the recast and can be turned into a 1200 potency oGCD self heal with no cost.

This is just flat-out misrepresentation. The Invigorate effect is mostly useless outside of dungeons, where it's not up enough to actually be that helpful, and the self-heal comes at the opportunity cost of decreased DPS for 10 seconds. It's the same logic people used for calling WAR the best MT in 3.0 because of Inner Beast- they completely ignore the opportunity cost associated with it. The reality is that a WAR who sat in Defiance, where they could utilize this "better mitigation," was inferior to both a Dark Knight and Paladin MT who actually played their role properly, whereas an MT Warrior didn't gain anything but extra damage from Vengeance. Not only that, but it restores 200 TP every 60 seconds, not the same 400 as Invigorate, like you were implying.

WAR is not powerful. Its only true use is in fight optimization, where its abundance of defensive cooldowns allows it to easily get away with things the other tanks can't. But even then, you learn the fight, use all of your offensive and defensive cooldowns properly, time everything perfectly with phases, line up everyone's buffs, and you're rewarded with...



About 17 more DPS than Paladin.

And on the most difficult fight in the tier, instead of just the average of the tier, you're rewarded with...



About 100 less.

You can make the argument that the top runs are padded, but the fact that it's just as rewarding (if not more) to pad a Paladin than it is a Warrior actually helps my point.

WAR is just garbage. The utility it offers is fake and there's absolutely no benefit to bringing one until you already have a fight mastered. And when you do have a fight mastered, its still only slightly better than something that's good in all scenarios (Paladin). Its only true benefit is that it outclasses Dark Knight when farming, but DRK has its fair share of problems as well. It needs significant buffs, whereas WAR only needs minor buffs and some significant QoL changes.

You could actually make a sound argument that DRK should do more DPS than WAR, given it lacks defensive cooldowns and TBN isn't actually that great, but that's just my bias showing, and another issue entirely.

The problem isn't Paladin, though. In a vacuum, Paladin is only slightly better than it was HW in terms of what it offers to a raid. It doesn't offer any truly overpowered utility like Path or Reprisal, and doesn't offer anything that's really all too convenient to other jobs, like a slashing debuff was in 3.0. The problem is that the other two tanks are bad.

This isn't even "tee hee buff everything instead of nerfing it xD" logic. The other two tanks are just actually, objectively garbage.

[Lyth]

...

Hi there. Not sure what's got you riled up, but leave the ad homs and weasel words out of it. I'll happily debate you on the content of your arguments, rather than the rhetorical fluff.

The mobility on Plunge is pretty important. The average GCD on DRK is worth 280 potency under Darkside (327 when you factor in resource gains) compared to 240 potency on Plunge. So you have to trade off the cost of a lost GCD against the cost of potentially losing a recast on Plunge (Total casts = fight duration/recast is what matters at the end of the day.) You're certainly going to hold Plunge if there's a knockback in the next few seconds, unless you like leisurely rp-walking back to the boss. With regards to Tempered Will, while it was a finicky action that didn't always work when you expected it to, part of optimisation involved testing it out and seeing where you could put it to good use. It wasn't always on non-raid content, either; you could use it to good effect on A6S, A8S and A10S. Either way, knockback negation is pretty important for improving uptime.

Also, did you really just try to claim that a gap closer shouldn't be used as a gap closer?

Sprint is important too, but it's on a longer recast, gets you back slower, and is equally important as a gap extender. When you have arena-length knockbacks like Vacuum Wave, it's generally preferable to prevent the knockback than it is to jog back to the boss.

The thing with IR is that, like any buff window, you should be planning where it occurs. The argument that "IR interferes with mechanics where you need to be knocked back" doesn't really make any sense because you're not going to pop your big 2 minute cooldown on a section where you're expected to be losing uptime the boss. Why on earth would you pop it in the middle of Long Drop when you're going to be knocked away from the boss for 5 out of those 20 seconds? Likewise, if there's a knockback in a section of the fight that you are expected to negate, you can always try to sync your IR window with it and dps away. This type of thinking isn't new to WAR; it was actually commonplace in HW when at one to two of your defensive cooldowns were tied to your zerk rotation, so you'd try to take advantage of the fact when planning your mitigation cooldowns.

It's easy to say "X is not utility, it has disadvantages", but you have to remember that there are better players out there at the same time thinking "X is utility, let me see how I can take advantage of this to maximise my uptime and dps".

Invigorate was 400 TP every 2 minutes as cross-class, vs. Equilibrium's 200 TP every 1 minute. It works out to be the same. The big self-heals both have opportunity costs associated with them. That doesn't change the fact that you still have access to them. Utility doesn't stop being utility when you aren't using it.

With regards to WAR's mitigation, IB isn't really the issue (it's really just there for prog as your "on demand" cooldown). If IB was mandatory, it would be one thing. But WAR has had the largest number of cooldowns on the shortest recasts since HW. This is even moreso now, since WAR gained access to Rampart and since IR/Veng have been uncoupled from zerk. There's actually a lot of defensive cooldown bloat that has happened over the years. I'm all for the "buff the other jobs up to the same level", but there comes a point where you just need to start trimming out the surplus of cooldowns.

You can cherry-pick parses if you like, but max values change fairly dramatically on a nearly daily basis simply because people are still collecting drops. You actually won't get a good sense of what the max is like for a few weeks. My own preference is to look at all the results, as I've done here: Link. Actually, if you look at the fights and the dps patterns of the three tanks, you can make a lot of sense out of it. WAR has a relatively lower sustained dps with very powerful burst. PLD has a high sustained dps with a relatively weaker burst. Losing a GCD outside of a buff window, on average, is a bigger dps on PLD. So when you look at the more optimised results, PLD will edge out WAR on high uptime fights when played near perfectly, while WAR will generally do better everywhere else as long as you don't pop IR-zerk at a silly point in the fights (like Long Drop).

DRK's problem is that while it represents a middle ground in combo potencies and sustained dps, the burst windows are where they fall behind. This points to more of an issue with Delirium and resource generation on DRK than anything else.

I think the biggest issue with "utility" is that most people don't really know what they want. They see another tank with a cool toy and decide that they really, really want it, more because they don't want to fall behind, than out of any real understanding of how they would optimise their play with it. The existing utility on the jobs goes disregarded, because people don't know how to push the limits of what they have: "Onslaught is bad", "IR's knockback negation is bad", "Equilibrium is situational/stance locked", etc. Either that, or a miscellaneous toy on one job gets used to justify a dps or mitigation advantage on another.

It's not the WAR job that's bad. If only we could buff the players.