Thread: 4.1 Dark Knight Feedback and fixes

Originally Posted by Aana

I know ill get some flak for this, but theres a reason defiance is OGCD and 'free' and pld/drks aren't. When you turn on grit/oath you immediately receive mitigation while defiance gives you nada. The second you make them OGCD you just made them into 10 sec recast ramparts.

Pld/Drk:
TB coming: Shield oath/Grit on!
*3 sec and free rampart later
Sword oath/click grit off!

War:
TB coming:
um I guess....FELL CLEAVE!!!

The second that the grit/oaths become OGCD we will have problems. Its not just about 'costing resources'. Its about preventing stances from being abused like a CD.

Right now for war to get the similar effect we have to Defiance>IB. That costs resources and damage, just like oaths/grit.

Actually I think for Warrior to have the equivalent its Defiance > Equilibrium giving you the full 25% hp more, which is basically the benefit of tank stance.

Defiance > IB is more like tank stance + rampart.

Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Actually I think for Warrior to have the equivalent its Defiance > Equilibrium giving you the full 25% hp more, which is basically the benefit of tank stance.

Defiance > IB is more like tank stance + rampart.

Not quite. The tank stance itself doesn't actually do anything immediately by itself (as opposed to drk/pld). It has to be paired with something to get that instantaneous effect (IB, equal, healer heal etc). If drk/pld stances were treated similar to defiance (ogcd etc as proposed) that balance would be gone. You could essentially flip rampart effect like a switch only when you need it and right back off when you don't and receive rampart effects on demand. War is limited by either a 1min CD (equal)+10 sec of defiance penalties or IB(instead of FC)+10 sec of defiance penalties. If drk was OGCD, they would need no secondary action to get their DR effect. They would not be locked in grit for 10 sec #clickoff.

The way it is now, wars turning on defiance is the 'least beneficial' defensively, but less costly offensively (less resources used, less damage lost) while pld/drks are more costly to turn on, but more immediately impactful. Obvisouly it gets more nuanced depending on the situation and what you pair with defiance, is it downtime, and a lot of other factors, but the bottom line is they function differently with that tradeoff in mind.

IF you were to change pld/drks to OGCD/lower cost that gets thrown out of wack. Pld/Drks stances are immediately more powerful without any additional CDs/heals/stuff that war would need for similar effect. If stance dance on pld/drk becomes as easy as wars, their stances will become flatly better no contest. And you can bet my bottom dollar it would get abused to all get out by flashing it on and off for a second at a time essentially getting the benefits of tank stance for free on everything but AAs if it were that easy to use.

To look at it another way:
War stance for 20% DR tankbuster costs: Equal+10 sec of trapped in defiance -damage. Option to trade equal for trading FC for IB
Drk stance for 20% DR tankbuster costs: 1GCD+MP potency. Click off instantly after used.
Pld stance for 20% DR tankbuster costs: 1gcd+MP(not sure how that translates to damage with overflow and depending on next req window, mana regen effects and many other thigns). Click off, but ultimately another GCD+MP for sword.

All those values are not 100% equal across the jobs and are situationally more or less punishing depending on the specific circumstance. But if you drastically cut the costs of pld/drks to war levels they will just be straight better and more abusable. Particularly drks as they can just click the damn thing off after 1 sec like nothing happened.

Originally Posted by Aana

Not quite. The tank stance itself doesn't actually do anything immediately by itself (as opposed to drk/pld). It has to be paired with something to get that instantaneous effect (IB, equal, healer heal etc). If drk/pld stances were treated similar to defiance (ogcd etc as proposed) that balance would be gone. You could essentially flip rampart effect like a switch only when you need it and right back off when you don't and receive rampart effects on demand. War is limited by either a 1min CD (equal)+10 sec of defiance penalties or IB(instead of FC)+10 sec of defiance penalties. If drk was OGCD, they would need no secondary action to get their DR effect. They would not be locked in grit for 10 sec #clickoff.

The way it is now, wars turning on defiance is the 'least beneficial' defensively, but less costly offensively (less resources used, less damage lost) while pld/drks are more costly to turn on, but more immediately impactful. Obvisouly it gets more nuanced depending on the situation and what you pair with defiance, is it downtime, and a lot of other factors, but the bottom line is they function differently with that tradeoff in mind.

IF you were to change pld/drks to OGCD/lower cost that gets thrown out of wack. Pld/Drks stances are immediately more powerful without any additional CDs/heals/stuff that war would need for similar effect. If stance dance on pld/drk becomes as easy as wars, their stances will become flatly better no contest. And you can bet my bottom dollar it would get abused to all get out by flashing it on and off for a second at a time essentially getting the benefits of tank stance for free on everything but AAs if it were that easy to use.

Aana, I think we have a misunderstanding. I'm not disagreeing with your points about tank stances. I'm disagreeing with what you are claiming are equal in tank stances. Warrior tank stance is not awesome, just awesomely flexible.

Defiance + Equilibrium is enough to heal your 25% extra HP, effectively giving you the ability to survive a hit up to 1.25 times your HP when not in tank stance, this is comparable to drk/pld tank stance at its 80% reduction for one less button, we can survive a hit up to 1.25 times our hp when not mitigated. I'm saying this pairing is equivalent to going into tank stance.

Defiance + IB is a self heal worth a bit, I don't 100% know how much but I believe it is a nice chunk of the hp you gained from defiance, and then gives you 20% damage down. This means you now have around 1.15 (since IB does not restore all of your HP) times your HP and you have 20% mitigation which means taking a hit up to about 1.44 times your hp. This costs extra buttons but gives extra benefit, its not equivalent to tank stance in the slightest, that is all I was implying in my post.

Except no one has offered the idea of only making it a ogcd alone. The idea was to give it a timer of 10-15 seconds so it can't be "flashed" off while making it an isntant. Warriors gain access to immediate +healing% ontop of IB and equilibrium. Ca'mon no one in their right mind is going to use equilibrium in deliverance so its going to be ready almost every time they switch to tank stance for hp gains if not every time. You are trying to contest the change way to hard. The bosses are all scripted, any war who is well adept in a fight can know when to preswitch to defiance for full HP + an IB for a tankbuster if they wanted. Hell if a dark knight is low on mp they can't even switch grit on in its current state.

Turning grit on and then using TBN would consume half our MP but a war is free to switch, heal itself, and mitigate 20%+an extra 7-10k from IB hp gains though to be fair it does cost 50 gauge i guess...

I'm just glossing everything over... fair enough. I'll save my patience for someone else then.

Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Except no one has offered the idea of only making it a ogcd alone. The idea was to give it a timer of 10-15 seconds so it can't be "flashed" off while making it an isntant. Warriors gain access to immediate +healing% ontop of IB and equilibrium. Ca'mon no one in their right mind is going to use equilibrium in deliverance so its going to be ready almost every time they switch to tank stance for hp gains if not every time. You are trying to contest the change way to hard. The bosses are all scripted, any war who is well adept in a fight can know when to preswitch to defiance for full HP + an IB for a tankbuster if they wanted. Hell if a dark knight is low on mp they can't even switch grit on in its current state.

Turning grit on and then using TBN would consume half our MP but a war is free to switch, heal itself, and mitigate 20%+an extra 7-10k from IB hp gains though to be fair it does cost 50 gauge i guess...

I'm just glossing everything over... fair enough. I'll save my patience for someone else then.

I personally like that all the tank stances are all defensively equal (when fully 'on'), but have slightly different interactions when your character 'transitions' from beating the shit out of stuff to wall mode and back again. Sure, we could all have OGCD, 10 sec stance locks, and calculate out the costs to be mathematically equal losses for all 3 classes, but that's just boring. They are pretty darn close right now. Maybe drks should cost 10% less or something minor, but I feel there are much bigger fish to fry that don't intentionally homogenize tanking where it currently isnt.

Originally Posted by Aana

I personally like that all the tank stances are all defensively equal (when fully 'on'), but have slightly different interactions when your character 'transitions' from beating the shit out of stuff to wall mode and back again. Sure, we could all have OGCD, 10 sec stance locks, and calculate out the costs to be mathematically equal losses for all 3 classes, but that's just boring. They are pretty darn close right now. Maybe drks should cost 10% less or something minor, but I feel there are much bigger fish to fry that don't intentionally homogenize tanking where it currently isnt.

While ur not quite disagreeing with ppl, nor are they really with you, I'd like to mention;

Any boss thats actually of any level of challenge, requires 2 mitigation to really survive the "real" TBs.
In the case of DRK, most commonly its tank stance, and TBN.
You can stack 2 oGCDs like when the tanks propperly switch, and have enough CDs to double stack them, while staying in DPS stances.
But in the end, its 2.

So over simplifying it;

PLD has tank stance, + rampart (or sheltron, w/e)
DRK has tank stance, + rampart (or TBN, w/e)
WAR has tank stance, +IB (or w/e)

So on average, each tank gives up 1 GCD and 1 oGCD.

Each tank stance comes at the cost of, besides the base dps loss they apply directly;
PLD loses 2 GCDs, which I think was 14 WSs needed to make up the dps loss? (maybe it was 12 or 13)
DRK loses 1 GCD, and 25% of their MP, which is roughly 7 GCDs to make up the DPS, plus the lost MP, but that changes based on which stance they are in.
WAR loses "the possibility" of not using fell cleave or a window of DPS.

PLD and DRK do lose more than WAR does from swapping stances.

thats the ONLY real reason anyone ever complained about the unfairness of WAR stance dancing.

WARs stance is great for snap threat, not as great for snap mitigation.
PLD/DRK is decent at snap mitigation, not so good as snap threat.

In the hardest content, tank stances are mainly used for threat, not mitigation, unless something goes wrong.

I dont think the other 2 tanks should get oGCD tank stances, but it is easy to see where WAR shines a bit more than the other 2 in its ability to minimize DPS loss from stance dancing.

Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

PLD loses 2 GCDs, which I think was 14 WSs needed to make up the dps loss? (maybe it was 12 or 13)

I'd like to know what it's at now, I believe 15sec but that almost sounds forgiving.. I recall in ARR to overcome the DPS loss of dropping a GCD to turn on Sword Oath was around 15 seconds or just under or at 2 RoHs (iirc).. Unless it was a practice dummy or T8, just dropped Shield instead and wait for a mechanic/movement downtime to turn on SwO.

That was just moving from ShO to SwO, not accounting for the additional GCD lost turning ShO on first.

This was before Holy Spirt (MP) & Requiscat, Goring, and 15% ShO penalty. I don't see how that window would have gotten any smaller.

I think Im loosing the original point in the weeds a bit.

These costs are all most pronounced if you try to 'flash' their current tank stance (ie: on AND off quickly) for short term mitigation (use it like a CD). The game is actively discouraging players from doing that and does a darn good job. And I don't want that part to change. That's what I tend to find most 'make pld/drk stances OGCD' request end up becoming because they just remove the costs and say 'it works on war I want it too'. My apologies for assuming you guys meant the same thing.

*Drks cost is entirely frontloaded so it feels bad to get INTO tank stance. But it is literally FREE to change OUT of tank stance on command.
* Pld costs less to get INTO tank stance (MP is not as valuable), but also free to drop. However has to pay the toll yet again on the backend to get INTO dps stance later with an interest payment of missed AA damage in the gap between free drop tank stance and the AA offense stance.
*War is 'free' to get into tank stance but it doesn't actually do anything until we pay a secondary cost (ib/equal or have someone else pay the cost and heal us to full). However the tradeoff being OGCD is we are committed for 10 sec, 4gcds minimum of lost damage and 'access' to IR/FC which then take more GCDs to make up the lost damage (similar to other tanks 7-8 total to make up).

The game stomps on every tank for trying to 'flash' tank stance for 2-3 sec at a time as it should.

War DOES have do better in a transition for a more 'traditional' tank swap where you are in beast mode, then put on your hard hat and tank for ~2minutes then swap again as it washes out the costs over time (the 10 sec lock) while pld still has to pay again (later) and drk had to pay so steeply up front. I'm not arguing that.

The only note id add at this point is war has always been like that. ie: days of jumping to defiance, popping unchained, bustin a cap making their swaps just flat better than the other tanks equivalents. That was a (rather iconic imo) of war fantasy. Does that make it right for 1 tank to do traditional long swaps with less cost? Iunno. But it's always been a piece of war's 'thing', though much less pronounced with IR deleting unchained usage. Obviously this is a blatant Appeal to Tradition fallacy, but when were talking about tanks and their identities, its at least relevant to consider I think.
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TLDR: I think we're agreeing sorta. I was focused on preventing the 'flashing' of tank stances on and off for a second at a time which is (currently) VERY costly for all 3 tanks, as it should be. No denying War has always had more efficient 'long term' swaps where you sit in tank stance for a good long while before handing it back. My only counter to the latter is a blatant appeal to tradition and has always been a part of the 'character' of the class.