Making Warrior's Butcher Block combo relevant

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Nothing makes me sadder than having to do multiple DA Power Slashes.

PLDs "hold my beer" *gets forced to use multiple rage of halones on adds because noone manages enmity*

[Garry]

My point is that the aggro generate abilities should be more interesting outside of generating aggro.

I think when generating aggro is a tight mechanic everyone is having a bad day. Either tank dps suffers or the dpsers themselves have to suffer. Heck even the healers have to struggle the tighter aggro gets.

Where aggro is nowx I think it is a thing that if no one does anything about it is a pretty big problem, but if every ok ne does their job no one has to stress over it.

However, now we have combos that suck for no real reason. It makes playing low level duty feel bad when you are forced to blow the cob webs off old abilities.

As such making the ability compelling out side of the above, just seems like a good way to use what we already have.

The arguments that adding more abilities is more the same I think is alittle bit silly as there are any ways to make these abilities interesting.

The butchers block combo could get a potency buff on a proc from fel cleave/inner beast. For instance, 25% chance that using fel cleave/inner beast will proc chop-chop.

Chop-chop: let's you use butcher block twice following your next skill sunder.

That way its compelling and mixed up an otherwise straight forward rotation. Makes the beast gauge alittle less predictable.

A similar thing can be done with the other tanks threat combos where they can be interesting either as a choice or a tack on to the rotation in favor of what would make each job more compelling.

For instance dark knights TBN instead of just spitting out a mana refund could empower your power flash combo to do alittle more damage and generate mana. Or have it generate blood gauge.

[whiskeybravo]

Chop-chop: let's you use butcher block twice following your next skill sunder.

As if using one threat combo wasn't bad enough.. Have a back-to-back butcher's! Lol

In all seriousness, though, they need to bring back a proc based tank for 5.0. They dumbed everything down this expansion, made tanking more simple. I don't think there's anything wrong with this per se, but I think it'd be better for the community if there was simply more diversity among jobs. Have "easy" jobs and "advanced" jobs to appeal to the very broad base of players that are present in this game, would it truly be that difficult?

[Hierro]

As if using one threat combo wasn't bad enough.. Have a back-to-back butcher's! Lol

In all seriousness, though, they need to bring back a proc based tank for 5.0. They dumbed everything down this expansion, made tanking more simple. I don't think there's anything wrong with this per se, but I think it'd be better for the community if there was simply more diversity among jobs. Have "easy" jobs and "advanced" jobs to appeal to the very broad base of players that are present in this game, would it truly be that difficult?

You can't have "advance jobs" and expect fair balance for all jobs, otherwise people would complain about having the same dps as the easy job, but having to work harder for it.

[whiskeybravo]

You can't have "advance jobs" and expect fair balance for all jobs, otherwise people would complain about having the same dps as the easy job, but having to work harder for it.

But that's not really how things have played out. I don't see many Ninja's complaining because SAM/MNK have higher DPS and are easier to play. And nearly every serious WAR main has complained about how simple WAR is now compared to Deltascape. PLD's have by far the most complex kit remaining, and are now at the bottom of the tank damage statistics - yet there are still many PLDs out there holding it down. Where are the "buff PLD" threads?

So, I have a hard time believing there would be some mass uproar because a "technical" tank (or job in general) outputs the same damage or offers the same utility as a job that's "easier" to play. Worst thing that could happen is no one plays it. Then what? They get buffed until people start playing it and it finds an equilibrium with the other jobs.

[Hierro]

So, I have a hard time believing there would be some mass uproar because a "technical" tank (or job in general) outputs the same damage or offers the same utility as a job that's "easier" to play. Worst thing that could happen is no one plays it. Then what? They get buffed until people start playing it and it finds an equilibrium with the other jobs.

the situation with NIN and PLD are vastly different. Regarding PLD, while it is true their rotation can be considered the most complex, it's not really an accomplishment but more so a "tallest midget" situation. Aside from that, their damage output is more so accurately at second place, being shared with DRK. We're not talking several degrees of complexity nor damage disparity, but even then we're ignoring the obvious thing as to what makes PLD and NIN so desirable: their utility, it's why they're meta.

NINs don't complain because their trick attack gets them into parties. I don't see the same thing for SAM.


An advanced job would have to be a fixed slot kind of class in order to be more technical but somehow worth it, but we know the issues that come with that.

[whiskeybravo]

otherwise people would complain about having the same dps as the easy job, but having to work harder for it.

but even then we're ignoring the obvious thing as to what makes PLD and NIN so desirable: their utility, it's why they're meta.

So which is it? DPS or Utility?

These aren't mutually exclusive. You could have a technical job with slightly higher DPS or utility

I think NIN/PLD fit into the description fine. More is required of them for the party than what's required other jobs, on top of physically having more buttons to press, but that doesn't stop them from being popular or desirable.

But all that is an aside. What I'm suggesting is to add a "technical" tank job, if we are going to call it that, instead of drastically changing the current paradigm. Players should have more options, we don't have to make everything the same watered down mush.

[Garry]

The real deal on more technical classes is that they tend to be lower dps, but higher utility. Meaning if you play bad it is less reflected in your personal dps and you have built in utility to fall back on even if your dps rotation is abit too difficult for you to pull off.

That said no job is all that hard.

[Lyth]

Butcher's Block has the most efficient trade-off of enmity for dps out of any of the tank enmity combos. It is the only enmity combo which gives you resources. Both PLD and DRK lose MP (and in the case of DRK, blood) for using their respective combos. Butcher's is also the only enmity combo which has a raw potency advantage (30 potency) over its dps combo prior to factoring in gauge. It has the highest baseline enmity out of the three combos by a significant margin.

The trade-off is essentially 10 gauge for 30 potency and a ton of enmity. Following the 4.2 WAR burst changes, the dps loss from Butcher's is smaller than ever, because none of your gauge usage factors into your free burst. When you factor in Unchained and your oGCD enmity tools, it's really hard to complain about enmity management on WAR. It has, by far, the least punishing enmity management of the three. It's what, a 42 potency loss at the worst? For a safety net combo that you should never really have to use because of all of your other enmity tools?

I can see why people may find enmity combos uninteresting or dislike that they take up hotbar space. I don't see the reasoning for specifically complaining about the most powerful enmity combo of the three, especially whilst expressing discontent over how simplified WAR has become in the same breath. It's difficult to not to see why it happened.

[Garry]

Well and so part of my point is it's not just butcher block it's all the emnity combos. I just described the one i am most familiar with being a warrior main, as to talk about any other class would make me look foolish.

From there if you really wanna compare as warrior is easy to pick on because it's on top. It actualy is alot closer to dark knight than you might think.


As 10 beast gage is worth about 100 potency worth of damage and the storms path combo vs the butchers block combo is about a 70 potency difference. more of a difference if your going into tank stanc even with unchained you still lose your free crit from beast gauge bar and you are losing out on your 5% increase in damage dealt, so it can be pretty signifigant. However assuming we stay in dps stance it's a straight trade of more emnity for 70potency damage loss.

Now comparing to dark knight which i dont know super well, but i read a guide and i am currently leveling mine. you also lose 70 pts for going the power slash route as the mana combo regens about half a dark arts worth of mana. So the loss is about the same. More so if you are switching to tank stance, but why would you waste GCD or in warriors case force yourself into tank stance for an extra GCD, and likely doing so might force you to lose a fel cleave or more likely over ca pgauge if it's an emergency.

SO all the emnity combos suck, and pulling hairs on which loses more is pretty besides the point.

THE POINT IS: the emnity combos are boring and pretty dumb, and all the tanks should have a more interesting and compeling reason to use this abilities.