Concise Tank Balance Changes

[Launched]

WAR doesn't need a single nerf as long as PLD has its current skill set.

[whiskeybravo]

I generally agree with Lyth's perspective, but I don't see anything in that post that suggests nerfing War is the only way to go. The only reason it would even be presented as such is because of damage creep, but there are plenty of other suggestions how that can be dealt with without nerfing any of our actual abilities. The only real solution is fix DRK. Again, I'm not opposed to DRK buffs, I've even offered suggestions in that vein. Direct nerfs are far from the "only option" to balance tanks correctly. It just gives SE an easy way out.

[shao32]

I generally agree with Lyth's perspective, but I don't see anything in that post that suggests nerfing War is the only way to go. The only reason it would even be presented as such is because of damage creep, but there are plenty of other suggestions how that can be dealt with without nerfing any of our actual abilities. The only real solution is fix DRK. Again, I'm not opposed to DRK buffs, I've even offered suggestions in that vein. Direct nerfs are far from the "only option" to balance tanks correctly. It just gives SE an easy way out.

the problem with WAR is the job is good on everything, have practically zero weakness and can't allow others have they proper niche bcs of that, PLD have the niche of utility and WAR keep the rest without mention its pretty good in utility too, lyth in this particular post talk about slasing sould be removed, but in others talk about how WAR HP steal sould be removed betwen other stuff to allow DRK and the new tank have proper niches, in other words spread all niches betwen all tanks properly and dont let one hold everything and have the urge of being extremly competent on all of it.

[DaulBan]

The didnt removed Reprsal, they spread it to all tanks. As for path, the reason why it was removed is that some people found too tiresome the concept of maintaining a constant debuff. That's also why Delirium was removed and RoH was changed.

In the end, party mitigation is a nice thing, it bring utility. It's just not very well balanced between the three tanks for now.

For the WAR DPS, yes, it would be a good thing. Having the highest burst can be very important for skipping some mechanics so the drawback of that should be a less sustained DPS.

Reprisal was removed from DRK kit and spread around, which is fine honestly. It's a tool everyone has equal access to, which means it isn't exclusive and doesn't really have much of an effect on Balance. Before the ShiO rework DRK and WAR were identical in having no party miitgation aside from reprisal.

PLD has the lowest DPS but the highest amount of logs. You suggesting increasing PLD DPS will increase their numbers? They are already the highest...

Again, looking at the entire zone, max DPS for 75th DRK is only 62 DPS behind WAR. 62 DPS

You are suggesting that by increasing DRK DPS, while simultaneously nerfing WAR and to a lesser degree PLD too, that somehow 10-15,000 more players are going to flock to DRK/PLD comps for that sick 62 DPS. I'll forget about the fact you haven't mentioned any changes to DRK, so it's still going to have the same playability problems that exist now for many people.

Which leads to my overall point, I still find myself cringing after reading threads like this. Instead of making the tanks better all around with respect to one another, all people can think of is just cutting off Warrior's limbs to make the other tanks more desirable.

You need glasses man, the only 'buff' in this is removing incoming crits. PLD and DRK have their damage completely unchanged, WAR is the only job that had anything happen to its damage output, unless you include limit gain from shake but even still I don't think that's what you're talking about. PLD loses Veil, WAR loses Shake (two changes that mean nothing to most people in most content performing at most levels), that's it.

snip

This may shock you because I've posted in other threads over the past while that I think damage debuffs should be gone for well over a year, but inasmuch as it has to do with slashing and tanks and comp I don't mind it as much. While applying the debuffs isn't exactly an active decision like other damage effects there is a decision at the time of making your comp to choose one job over another. If WAR does less sustained damage (and to be clear, the nerf I wrote is paltry to the nerf I calculated and thought of using) then in compositions with a NIN or SAM the job is just less appealing. This should be the case when it comes to redundancy in damaging effects, it just doesn't matter right now because damage buffs are too limited in variety and availability for them to be of a concern to the group. If Debuffs were more varied then slashing and redundancy make sense, right now they don't as a matter of design and that's fine.

Right now you have 4 options: Bring slashing on a DPS (preferably NIN), bring it on a tank (so WAR), not bring it at all (which is bad), or bring two slashing by accident, which has no drawback because there is no opportunity cost. If you want to avoid the third scenario, which is the case if you have no WAR or no SAM/NIN, you gotta make concessions to get the buff. I think that's more or less fine, it might be frustrating but that's just part of putting a group together; you have objectives and you can attain them in a limited number of ways. Slashing is just one point where the decision is made at the time of comp, not when you're fighting a boss.

For the changes I listed, slashing gives you the benefit of an option in your melee spots if you bring it, it's something that's useful.

Not a single one suggests nerfing Bard, even though it outclasses MCH in nearly every category. No, they want SE to fix MCH and make it fun to play again, make it compete effectively with Bard. It's too difficult to take this approach with DRK?

DRK is fine, I don't really wanna change DRK. DRK was reasonably positioned in Deltascape before they made unga bunga WAR and people migrated away from it and into the open hands of the WAR buzz saws. It's better now, but people doggedly follow their own tails around the raid shielding thing which makes DRK preceptually worse but practically identical to the other jobs. The WAR nerf is like 90 DPS, it'd only barely put it behind DRK and PLD on perfect uptime, let alone adds or downtime. This sort of change would be more or less immaterial.

The nerf to WAR is about statement; without shields and with comparable DPS WAR and DRK would be more or less identical in damage but with different mitigation, different damage delivery, and different aesthetics.

[whiskeybravo]

Bruh, I got eagle vision, don't need glasses :P

"Remove Shake and Veil"
So you just stop using SiO & Veil altogether once you get a fight on Farm? Why? Lazyness? Just don't feel like pressing another button? Maybe it's just me, but once I get in the habit of pressing it for certain mechanics I tend to keep pressing it for those mechanics, because, why not? I don't disagree that the LB building aspect of these abilities should be looked at. But as for actually being a tank and being assigned as the "protector" of the party, using a party shield or other ability which mitigates damage to the party feels good. It's not something that I'd like to be taken away simply because "it's not useful after prog". It's an interactive way to participate and contribute within the group. It's usage is something that needs to be discussed within the group. I don't see any justifiable reason why DRK actually got Reprisal taken away as an exclusive, it would've basically been the equivalent to the PLD and WAR shields that you apparently despise and don't use.

"War sustained DPS"
First off, need to separate DRK and PLD here. As mentioned, PLD has the most raid utility skills and thus we can fairly agree that it's appropriate for them to have the lowest DPS of the 3 tanks. This general mantra translates to every job, not just tanks. Secondly, it's not clear to me how reducing potency of maim, path and eye is going to reduce dps in low uptime fights but not affect high uptime fights. This doubles down on the impact of burst, which is the supposed culprit in your analysis, while making the rest of WARs rotation even less important to keep up with. Considering we have about the most abilities locked behind requiring a target, this is a noticeable weak spot of Warrior and shouldn't really be further enforced. If the problem with our DPS is burst maybe you should look there, and the fact SE decided pressing 2 buttons was too hard and RNG was too unfair.

"Slashing stays"
I agree with others that the 100% uptime debuffs should be looked at. There's no argument here except that I have ran into this issue, not necessarily for raiding but when goofing off with friends.

"Crits go away"
This isn't explained well. You're getting rid of critical attacks on all tanks? Or just War? If all tanks, how does it benefit War more than others? You forget about awareness and how we have all 10 role skills now? I don't see the need for this, tanks are arguably the strongest they've ever been defensively, and having to worry about critical attacks is about the only thing that keeps raids random nowadays. Freaking out because I don't have enough HP to survive a critical auto keeps me interested in what's actually going on. I see this as a nerf to tank & healer gameplay, but you can call it a buff if you want. Actually, it is a buff - to PLD of all tanks. No crits = more blocks.

"That's it?"
Again, PLD does not need to be ahead of either tank given it's current toolkit. PLD is the most played tank currently, it doesn't need help. DRK needs help. DRK should arguably do more damage than WAR. I have no problem with that. Do it properly.

"Why?
Because DRK deserves to be fixed. If for no other reason because I'm tired of not wanting to bring one to a party. I'm tired of seeing these threads. I can't be the only one. War is a good tank right now. PLD is a good tank right now. DRK is not. F'n fix it already SE. Admit you screwed up and amaze us in 5.0 to make up for it.

DRK was reasonably positioned in Deltascape before they made unga bunga WAR and people migrated away from it and into the open hands of the WAR buzz saws.

This is actually borderline delusional

Deltascape:
War - 16,631
Pld - 18,454
Drk 9,181

Sigmascape
War - 21,600
Pld - 24,010
Drk - 9,020

Alphascape:
War - 31,741
Pld - 33,827
Drk - 10,442

A whopping 161 people jumping on the unga bunga train. Then nearly 9x as many came back to check out the changes on DRK. Still wasn't enough to make a meaningful impact. Just as many people are flocking to PLD as they are WAR, actually more than by these numbers..

But just keep pointing the finger at Warrior.

[Hierro]

I think SiO should be reworked or removed, either's fine. As a WAR main, I felt the class was more than sufficient with its strong personal mitigation suite. I have no idea why there's this obsession with ~*utility*~ since there was never a situation before that was un-clearable for WAR until it get raid-wide shield. I would have been fine with the first rendition of SiO if it actually was capable of removing significant debuffs. But no, it was useless in removing jack-SHIT. That didn't mean the solution was a DV clone.


I also think slashing should be removed, as should any and all similar uptime debuffs. It just feels horrible when, for example, I'm playing my heart out as DRK and I know I gave an excellent performance, only to later check a log and see that there was a 87% upkeep of slashing on the boss becuase of the incompetent ninja/samurai, and as a result my results aren't as good as they should be, or that I don't even want to join a party all together when I'm in the mood for playing a certain I like only because there's no such present debuff provider.

[Grimoire-M]

I'd be fine with slashing/piercing if all the classes that need them had them to be honest. MCH/BRD both should have Piercing on Straight/Hot Shot and DRK should get Slashing on Plunge. PLD certainly could get it as well (likely on Goring Blade similar to NIN) but given people aren't running dual PLD comps it would be fine as long as two of the three tank classes had it. It benefits PLD the least out of all three regardless.

[Duskane]

I dont think the slash res is much of a issue,
Piercing is a bit centralizing but either give that to bard and MCH or they do flat damage and get a slight buff to make up for the loss,
Blunt is just there unless they add another blunt weapon really minor thing.
Now i think of it these would make good role skills,i dont think these res downs should go though

I believe war just needs to be toned down not necessarily nerfed
Other 2 tanks just needs some QoL (and we all know who needs some aoe),
I don't see much of a reason to remove SiO or Divine veil unless its to cut back on the healers ogcd meta??

[whiskeybravo]

I've had a little time to think, and I think I've arrived at.. a compromise

1) Remove Reprisal from WAR and PLD. Make this DRK exclusive again.

2) Reduce effectiveness of Shake it Off. Base shield 4% with each buff consumed adding 4% up to a maximum of 12% HP

etc) It might be possible to boost the effectiveness of Reprisal, 15%? Not sure, there's obviously a point where incoming damage would give one an advantage over the other, but it shouldn't be incredibly difficult to balance their effective mitigation.

[Saeno]

Slashing stays.

Not a change, but notable for it's remaining. With limited slashing WAR maintains some of its use thanks to bringing slashing to parties that are otherwise occupied with other DPS. In a MNK/DRG melee comp WAR is much better than either DRK or PLD just for buffing the other tank. It would be less powerful in other situations, but you gotta roll with the punches.

This is still a really bad idea. Taking a tank because of a DPS related debuff ensures that you don't just take WAR sometimes, it ensures you're taking WAR almost every single time despite what DRK or PLD may have. There's a reason why people want Piercing debuff gone, and the same reasons can be applied to slashing.