Thread: Try to predict Nerf/Buff/QoL of 4.2 Tank Edition

Originally Posted by bswpayton

they already nerfed pali, by cutting the potency of hs, leave pali alone and just fix drk and I really just want a fourth tank anyway in 5.0 they just arent gona balance three tanks I dont see it ever happening so rather have a choice to have 4 different options and maybe things will even out

I agree I would like to have another option to play. My issue, and I think a few people's issues is that the current tanks already fill so many roles it doesn't feel like adding a fourth would bring anything unique. And this is what I think people mean by handing out some nerfs, if we want a 4rth tank that does something unique we either need to accept that all tanks are homogenized (the worst possible option) or we need to not have self healing, party shielding, high damage, high mitigation, gap closing monsters as every possible option.

Paladin
-Requiscat is moved to Magical Damage
-Shield Oath generates gauge on being hit instead of on blocking.
-Sword oath generates gauge on weaponskill usage instead of Auto Attacks.

A small nerf on Paladin's damage, a nerf on Sword Oath gauge generation, a gain on paladin's Shield Oath generation.

Dark Knight
-TBN no longer costs MP. When self cast, it uses up to 25 Blood and refunds twice the amount it took when the shield breaks.
-Sole Survivor grants ramping Damage Reduction based on how many enemies were nearby upon activation. Killing a nearby enemy extends the duration.
-Power Slash adds half its potency to the next damaging Spell or Magic Ability utilized.
-Souleater instead grants 5 Blood. Siphon Strike and Spinning Slash now grant 5 blood.

Dark Knight's dynamic with TBN and MP is removed. TBN remains best utilized on Tank Busters and the 'risk/reward' mechanic is now solely for blood. Straight up Buff.
Sole Survivor is made useful to fill the mitigation hole in Dark Knight's kit.
Power Slash is given another pay off to minimize bad feelings for having to use your Threat Combo. Most effectively utilized with Salted Earth or Dark Passenger
Blood redistribution to not so heavily stack Souleater's combo line.

At this point they might as well make DRK into DPS class because its ovious they dont know how balance 3 tanks into 2 tank meta.

They seem pretty satisfied with balance right now so probably just a few random, minor potency/QoL tweaks here and there.

... unless playtesting for the next Omega tier throws up any new major issues.

The Slashing debuff should just be removed from the game entirely and replaced with a 10% bump to all single-target potencies, honestly. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to eat up a debuff slot and to punish players for using off-meta party compositions.

If it's not going to be removed, then I'd rather see them just give it to DRK and PLD than take it away from WAR. It could easily just be a secondary effect on Royal Authority for PLD, and a secondary effect on Souleater, Dark Arts, or just Plunge on DRK.

I'm not really sure why we still have Slashing/Piercing debuffs. I thought the point of removing 100% uptime debuffs like INT down was to avoid forcing players into certain comps? I don't even think it's a numbers re-balancing issue, because they didn't have any difficulties reducing Piercing from 10% to 5% in Stormsblood.

If they want to keep these sorts of things in as flavour, they should be limited duration and involve raid coordination (i.e. convert Slashing/Piercing into a mini-trick attack for the affiliated jobs). Also, if you're providing a raid dps buff, your dps should be proportionally lower for it, to compensate groups that don't want run the job in their comp.

I can only hope that when they look at their party composition and completion rates for ultimate and savage they recognize that dark knight is being run as significantly lower rates and make adjustments accordingly.

In particular these adjustments would be nice (I think these are some combination of the best suggests for dark knight proposed over the past few months lol):

Originally Posted by FallenWings

Dark Knight

Nerf:
The Blackest Night
25 second cooldown.

Buff:
Shadow Wall
120 second cooldown. For 10 seconds reduces incoming damage by 30%. Grants the effects of Blood Price for its duration(Ignores Grit Restriction). Restores MP(1 Dark Arts Equivalent).

Delirium
No Blood Cost. Extends the duration of Blood Weapon and Blood Price by 9 seconds/15 seconds. Doubles the effects granted by Blood Weapon and Blood Price for their duration.

The Blackest Night.
6 second duration. When broken for the full amount of shielding, grants 50 Blood and gain the effects of Black Arts(Black Arts is used as a Dark Arts effect when Dark Arts is not active, 6 seconds duration).

Dark Passenger
150 potency. Costs a full/half Dark Arts.

Dark Mind
Reduces incoming damage by 15%. Dark Arts effect: Reduces incoming damage by 15% for allies within range. 90 second cooldown.

Bloodspiller
Delivers an attack with a potency of 500.
Dark Arts Potency: 700
Dark Arts effect: Restores 20 Blood.
Ignores the damage penalty of Grit.

"New" Dark Dance
120 second cooldown. Gain 100% Parry chance.

QoL:
Plunge
Removed animation lock. Increases Blood Gauge by 10.

Carve and Spit
Removed Dark Arts effect.
Deals 450 Potency baseline.
Costs MP(1 Dark Arts Worth.)

Living Dead
Swap current HP and MP percentages at the end of Walking Dead.
Removed Healing requirements.

The closest you're going to find to a coherent argument in favour of Slashing/Piercing/Blunt debuffs is the idea some people seem to have that it's supremely important to the game's sense of depth and challenge that you open every fight, every add spawn, and every post-downtime reengagement with 2-3 GCDs where you're missing 10% of your damage.

Every other argument is inconsistent at best, and more frequently, just completely incoherent. There's just really no other defence - the most likely explanation for their current incarnation is that SE flat out did not think things through.

Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I agree I would like to have another .

I know it's probably not the most popular option but homogenizing tanks and heals seem to only be the real solution to balance in this game. All heaks will have aoe heals, all will have some type of damage mitigation, all will have their lustrate, benediction type heal. Same with tanks they all will have similar defensive cool dreams, aoe Argo abilities. The only thing I think that can separate these roles are aesthetics, at the end of the day they the rolls gonna be copy and paste of each other