Let's make aggro combo's great again

[Quor]

I love the new Byakko fight. Not just because it's fuggin' Byakko, but because, as a tank, I have a reason to use my aggro combo. The full aggro wipe that's done when he picks you up for the stack mechanic is a nice touch. All of a sudden DPS need to be cognizant of their aggro, and we tanks are incentivized to use our aggro combo's more than once in a fight. Hopefully SE will add more fights like this, where aggro management is actually a thing that needs to be addressed.

But maybe they won't. And that got me thinking that it would be nice, especially when I play on my DRK, if I had a reason to use my aggro combo outside of just aggro. WAR and PLD used to have a reason; BB combo was the highest DPS for WAR in the pre-gauge days, and RoH debuff was something you wanted to keep up full time on pretty much every fight, even if all it did was lower AA damage. DRK rarely used PS, but they had old Delirium to spice things up a bit. As of 4.0 however, there's no reason to use an aggro combo outside of the opener, and even that's not a sure thing if you have a NIN with you.

What I'd Like to See

WAR - this is simple. Add a trait, call it something like "Fractured" or "Bonebreaker" that adds a 10 potency DoT to Butcher's Block for 30s. Yes, this is basically Fracture tacked on to BB. No, the class will not be made too complex due to the addition of a DoT. If anything, it would be nice if you could make it synergize with IR in some way. Prepping a BB combo, hitting IR, finishing the BB combo, then moving into FC spam would certainly be more interesting than what we have now, while also not being overly complex. Potency numbers can be adjusted of course, since WAR is already top DPS, but I doubt an additional ~100 potency over ~30s is going too far.

DRK - DRK needs help. The core of the class is (some people may disagree with me here) pretty fun, but having a single combo that comprises more than 99% of your GCD's in a given fight....that gets old pretty fast. I propose two things for Power Slash; first, while in Grit, using PS combo will apply a debuff to the enemy called "Traumatized." While under the effect of this debuff, all damage dealt to the DRK and only the DRK by the debuff enemy is reduced by 3%. Furthermore, any damage taken by the DRK from that enemy increases blood gauge by 2 with a duration of 60s on the debuff. The practical effect of this is a slight increase in passive tanking power and greater blood gauge income while actively taking damage. Two gauge-per-instance-of-damage doesn't seem like it would be too much, even with a lot of simultaneous AoE flying around like in O5S. But even then it would create interesting moments where you get a burst of blood gauge gain. Naturally, this effect would stack with Blood Price.

Out of Grit, using Power Slash while under the effect of Blood Weapon would apply the buff "Closing In" for 30s, that decreases the MP and blood gauge cost of actions by 10, maybe 15%, and increases the maximum blood gauge by 50 for the duration of the buff. This is simply increasing throughput for the DRK. By lowering MP and blood costs you can crank out more DA's and Bloodspillers over the course of a fight. An extra 50 gauge to the cap means you could also throw out TBN for utility purposes (help MT soak a TB, shield a vuln'd teammate) and not worry about wasting blood. The reduced MP costs offset this as a loss, giving more actual value to TBN relative to what it was, and potentially granting 3-4 Bloodspillers in a single TA window if planned/timed correctly. Any blood in excess of 100 that the DRK possesses when the buff duration expires will convert to MP at a 15:1 ratio. So if the you have 130 blood when the duration ends, you'll get 45x10 or 450 MP back. This is mostly a QoL thing to help ease a transition back in to Grit if necessary, but also to prevent a "loss" of blood gained while Closing In is active. You're obviously better off spending the blood if you can, but if you can't for whatever reason, then it's not a total loss.

PLD - PLD already has a DoT to manage, and they're DPS seems to be in a pretty good spot, so I figured let's bring the RoH buff back but in another way. Something that emphasizes the PLD's ability to protect their teammates. To that end, using RoH on a target applies the "Halonic Fury" debuff for 20s. The next damaging attack made by any player besides the PLD will apply a buff to that player called "Halone's Grace" that creates a shield equal to 5% of that player's maximum health with a duration of 15s. This will also apply a debuff to that player, "Halone's Judgment" that lasts for 20s and prevents the player from acquiring Halone's Grace while debuffed.

The effect here is to take the burden off of the healers and protect your team a little bit. You're trading a good chunk of DPS and MP regen by opting to use RoH over RA, but the benefit is that each DPS, the OT, and very likely the healers will gain a bit of extra survivability. This isn't much of course, but combined with Reprisal or timely use of Succor/Shake it Off/Divine Veil it can have a noticeable affect. Plus I'm sure we've all seen those times when a DPS survived with less than 5% of their maximum health. How many more have died by that much?

For the PLD, attacking a target afflicted by Halonic Fury will heal the PLD for 10 potency per attack. This will probably be negligible as far as being MT goes, but as an OT in SwO, with the normal GCD rotation, auto-attacks, and the extra AA's from being in SwO, it should amount to a decent bit of healing. Enough for the PLD to self-sustain as OT without much input from the healers outside of the big raid-wide aoe's and other such mechanics.

Will all of this happen?

Oh by the Twelve no. It's highly improbable to say the least. But it's fun to brainstorm ideas and talk about them.

[KDSilver]

So, I'm not a tank and I don't even really know what tanks are really doing but...

Aren't they just provoking before being grab and that's all ?...
Or I miss something. But that's what i've been told.

[whiskeybravo]

Yea, it seems just a bit tricky to time. Honestly forgot about the reset part, I was cussing WHMs and MNKs all weekend lol

[Nivarea]

You know you can cast Provoke during the cast to not reset aggro on Byakko ? =B If you're on a static, you can even insert a shirk by the MT to gain more aggro. X)

Well, on the subject, I'm not really for tacking effects on aggro combos. I mean, it can lead to other problems, such as surpassing your MT when you're OTing at aggro, which can lead to problematic situations. PLD having only a combo aggro on lv 50 content is already not a good thing. What you're proposing is interesting nonetheless in term of abilities, but honnestly, on DRK case, I would prefer it to be on a third combo finisher, not on PS. There's also the neverending problem of balance, but as you're saying, you're just brainstorming, so it's not really an issue. ^^

[Mavrias]

So, I'm not a tank and I don't even really know what tanks are really doing but...

Aren't they just provoking before being grab and that's all ?...
Or I miss something. But that's what i've been told.

Yeah all it is is a provoke that you have a pretty decently sized window to hit I honestly have no idea what OP is talking about.

[Phileas]

I dont need aggro combo for that bit. Voke is enough during the long cast to get enough enmity to do mechanic.

The rest is a bit long for me to read while at work so maybe a bit later.

[whiskeybravo]

Come to the OF where most people will tell you to delete aggro combos off your hotbar, and you were expecting... ?

It certainly looks like you put a decent amount of thought in to them, and in a vacuum they might be interesting additions. But as it stands there's not much point in making aggro combos more useful. Unless it's a straight DPS increase any added effect is only going to be used situationally. Much like they are used currently..

I'll entertain for a bit:

War - no way are you dropping an IR'd Fell Cleave GCD for 100 extra potency on BB. You also have to consider gauge generation from SP. I did the math a while back and honestly can't recall now, plus adjustments they made to IR (something along the lines if you do SE>SP>BB it costs you a Fell Cleave after X amount of rotations vs SE>SP>SP)

Drk- yes, certainly needs help. Adding different effect for in/out of Grit is tough because the meta is to be in tank stance as little as possible, so half of the effects wouldn't be used most of the time. Another thing is that the PS combo is spammable. Having a 30sec buff on a spammable combo basically means 100% uptime. Should be reworked into an action with appropriate CD or "baked in" type effect of Grit or Darkside (if you want something with 100% uptime)

Pld - It's a bit funny you thought about the aforementioned uptime problem here but not with Drk (unless I missed it). An obvious problem is "The next damaging attack made by any player besides the PLD", what if a specific member needs the shield to keep from dying? How in the heck are you going to get 6 other people to stop attacking just to make sure the specific member gets the shield at the time they need it? Aside from the plethora of party support Pld already brings, now you're adding random shields on everyone and more self-healing (when they can already spam Clemency in a pinch for healing).. Tell me what happens to DRK after this lol

[Kabooa]

Butcher's Block: Applies Fractured Armor, increasing damage taken by the target by 3%. Separate sources of this stack, up to 3 times.
Rage of Halone: Applies Fractured Armor, increasing damage taken by the target by 3%. Separate sources of this stack, up to 3 times.
Power Slash: Applies Fracture Armor, incre-

[Galgarion]

I really do miss fracture. They ought to tie it to fell cleave. The fell cleave animation just screams for the attack to leave a bleed effect.

[Linx0r]

Well, pld agro combo you should use once in a boss fight unless you are in a static with people who are agro aware. But most people forget that RoH combo also gives boss a physical debuff. Tank swapping and climbing agro table has other tools for this purpose. But agro combo has its uses. Tanks in dungeons who refuse to use an agro combo in mobs may need to come back to this. So many times healing a shitty tank who pulls everything in dps stance and the adds run wild .