Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[Kalise]

Maybe WAR just shouldn't have all those tools?
Maybe putting the best aggro gen, the highest dps, the best invul, the slashing debuff the other tanks need and an AoE party shield all on the one tank is giving them just a little too much?

Well that's a different discussion entirely.

I'm merely pointing out that chucking all those same tools onto GUN wouldn't magically fix PLD/DRK not having them or anything similar to them to make them actually vie for the spot that WAR has maintained.

[Kabooa]

I had started a full write up detailing actions and traits and levels and, but then I was like, no.

Summary.

I want the Stances to be based around their resource utilization. A Six slot ammo system, where stance swapping between Tank and Not-Tank is also a full reload. Additional partial reloads depend on good execution and defensive skill utilization. Tie the Gunbreakers performance directly into proper utilization of the entire kit when in front of the boss rather than just half of it.

Gunbreaker's unique approach to this is that only Weaponskills are boosted or penalized by Stance shifts. Auto Attacks, Abilities (Often fueling or fueled by Ammo) and Gunblade charge expenditures are not affected by stance.

I want weaponskills divided between "Drivers" and "Breakers". Drivers naturally expend Gunblade ammo. Breakers open up an OGCD called 'Trigger' and have longer Recast times.

"Triggers" are an OGCD attack with additional effects. It consumes 1 Gunblade ammo to use, and through some timing mechanic, increases in potency the closer you are to the sweet spot. A trigger's bonus effect is based on the Breaker preceding it. A trigger hitting the 'sweet' spot is traited at later levels to restore a Gunblade charge.

Gunblade ammo grants a bonus damage effect when expended based on which 'Cylinder' (Stance) is currently in the Gunblade. 'Not Tank' is a higher single target potency while 'Is Tank' is a Point Blank AOE.

The Gunbreaker's short CD defense is a Parry and Evasion tool. It grants a short 100% evasion window for most attacks, but unavoidable attacks instead hit a guaranteed Parry. This parry tool is granted early and is traited as the Gunbreaker levels to A) Restore Gunblade charges on successful defense and B) Parry Magical attacks later. (Runic, baby!)

The Gunbreaker's moderate CD defense grants damage reduction dependent on the Gunblade charges consumed. "But my DPS" - Gunblade charges being expended grant the bonus potency. You may potentially lose a Trigger, but this is where stance management comes into play (as they act as full reloads).

The Gunbreaker's burst phase is Renzokuken. It would morph each Breaker into a powerful finishing move, remove combo restrictions, and grant unlimited Gunblade charges for the duration. Any finishing move utilized ends Renzokuken early.

The Gunbreaker's party bonus is an On-Hit effect to the target - Any attack landing on this target deals additional potency based on the Gunbreaker's combat stats. The Gunbreaker's party DPS window is best utilized when rapid attacks are coming in, such as Ninja OGCD windows, Machinist Wildfire, and Summoner Bahamoots.

The goal here is a Tank that is utilizing both their stances, with proper usage ensuring a full use of their kit at all times. Limiting resource generation to Stance swaps, successful defenses, and perfect triggers is aimed at encouraging precise play.

[Izsha]

I wish they would do away with the damage type debuffs in general. They arent strategic in anyway. About as interesting as dark side.

As for expac they will he deleting and combining skills and changing up jobs in their entirety. Theres no way to predict future balance until numbers and cooldown timers get released so theres no point in jumping on the salt train yet.

But we can talk about the character and concepts of the classes we want. Warrior staying bursty, focusing more on hp related synergy (upheaval was a great move in that direction imo) and replacing its support actions like sio with warcry style action(s) I think would be an interesting and fun war to play. That's not qqing for more war OP. That's just class concepts.

[Kalise]

I wish they would do away with the damage type debuffs in general. They arent strategic in anyway. About as interesting as dark side.

They're not inherently bad though. It allows some jobs to garner more favour in being used even if they're not THE highest DPS, promoting more diverse compositions and not like 4x BLM/SAM (Though, SAM provides Slashing debuff which kind of defeats that point...)

The main issues are how they implemented the Physical debuffs.

1) They're 100% uptime. This means that they're not particularly exciting, they're just a 5/10% damage multiplier for everyone with that damage type. As opposed to the magical debuff which is limited currently to just SMN's Contagion which is 15s duration 60s CD so it's more of a cooldown for burst rather than a constant buff. Essentially the physical debuffs are akin to if RDM's Embolden just had infinite duration.

2) They're separated into damage types. Instead of just having 5 classes that can debuff physical, you have 3 that can debuff Slashing (With 2 classes benefitting from this that cannot apply it), 1 that can debuff Piercing (With 2 classes benefitting from this that cannot apply it) and 1 that can debuff Blunt (Which is the only class that cares about it) - This causes awkward things such as a prioritization for the classes that can apply a specific damage type debuff when you're using classes that benefit that cannot debuff that damage type.

So, really, what they should do, is make all the physical debuffs into just general physical debuffs instead of types. Then also move them from being parts of rotations that are 100% uptime (Replacing the effect on said skills with something that benefits only the user) to more CD-like usage. Finally, put a form of DR onto the effects so that enemies can only be debuffed to the damage type (Phys/Mag) periodically to nullify potential stacking of debuff classes for 100% uptime.

[Izsha]

I suppose, but that's just a lot of effort for a button that "buffs physical damage". At that point it might as well be requiem, the mch thing, Brotherhood, litany, etc. Going through all that trouble just waters it down into just another party buff button. And that's fine, but at that point why not just delete the debuffs wholesale and give the jobs that need it a party buff (magic or physical, or everyone). I dont see your plan as trying to salvage the idea of debuffs, just an elaborate way of saying we should still delete them because they are terrible lol.

[Kalise]

I suppose, but that's just a lot of effort for a button that "buffs physical damage". At that point it might as well be requiem, the mch thing, Brotherhood, litany, etc. Going through all that trouble just waters it down into just another party buff button. And that's fine, but at that point why not just delete the debuffs wholesale and give the jobs that need it a party buff (magic or physical, or everyone). I dont see your plan as trying to salvage the idea of debuffs, just an elaborate way of saying we should still delete them because they are terrible lol.

Well, a debuff can be limited by, for example, Diminishing Returns. So that multiple classes can bring the same utility, without it all just stacking like would happen if it was just another buff.

So it could allow various jobs of having the strength of providing some utility in the form of temporary damage increases for the party, which would be nice for 4 man content. Without it then just being part of the "Stack all the buffs" meta in Raids. Like, it's already a thing that NIN is brought because of their 10% damage boost to everyone debuff, even if their personal DPS is kind of meh compared to some other classes. Imagine now if you now made more classes get "Everyone does more damage" CD's, it'd just mean that you'd bring NIN and 2 other jobs that have these buttons to go along with your BRD.

While, if it was non-stacking CD types, it'd be like "Oh, we could bring a NIN, OR a DRG, OR a MNK, OR a SAM, OR a WAR for that utility skill"

[Izsha]

The problem with that is the opposite. Instead of focusing on party buffs, it just shifts to what job does the most personal damage. We bring ninja because of the stack all damage. If we have to choose between a sam or a drg that both have phy buff skill, then we just pick sam because it does more damage and they have the same utility. The meta will just evolve to the new optimal. If lots of jobs bring the same tool, then you just exclude the weak job and bring the strong one. Just reverse ninja problem.

I dont see that as a particular improvement, just a shift of stack all the buffs to stack all the best damage because everyone has equivalent buff.

Maybe im.missong something but I dont see any real difference. We agree 100% uptime, part of optimal rotation buffs are bad. But transferring them to another kind of buff just changes the optimal comp answer, but not the fundamental formula in any way.

[Kalise]

The problem with that is the opposite. Instead of focusing on party buffs, it just shifts to what job does the most personal damage. We bring ninja because of the stack all damage. If we have to choose between a sam or a drg that both have phy buff skill, then we just pick sam because it does more damage and they have the same utility. The meta will just evolve to the new optimal. If lots of jobs bring the same tool, then you just exclude the weak job and bring the strong one. Just reverse ninja problem.

I dont see that as a particular improvement, just a shift of stack all the buffs to stack all the best damage because everyone has equivalent buff.

Well, it doesn't preclude jobs still having unique buffs.

Like, just because DRG and NIN both provide a similar phys debuff doesn't mean that DRG doesn't still have Battle Litany and NIN still has Trick Attack and MNK still has Brotherhood.

It just means that the debuff portion of their utility isn't as highly prioritized in their worth, especially if it means something like SAM is still only relevant because its high personal DPS while DRG would be a potential replacement because they bring Battle Litany to boost everyone's DPS even if DRG does less damage than the SAM.

Basically, it adds another dynamic to class balance outside of "Only personal DPS matters" or "Only buff stacking matters"

[Izsha]

If you delete current damage type debuffs, but add non-stackable nin/drg/sam/mnk 'physical' buffs what does that achieve regarding dynamic of balance exactly? If nothing else changes, you still bring a ninja for everything else it does. Sam still is personal dps king. How is this situation balance things any differently than just deleting all the physical type debuffs in the game? (And assuming adding that potency back to the jobs so mages dont take over).

Removing the buffs then adding generic and equivalent versions to all physical dps doesnt move the balance needle anymore than just deleting them and stopping there. The only thing it adds is an ogcd kin everyone's rotation.

If you remove a 100% uptime buff then give everyone a button with the same effect that doesnt stack, all we did was change a 100% buff to a burst window buff.

Edit:
The only time this dynamic even matters is drg buffing ranged. Between sam, nin, and war theres almost no chance someone is choosing a job to get slashing. Mnk is self contained. Drg is the only job that currently has any sway based on its debuff action. Removing all these buffs would have the desired effect of freeing up party comps, though it only tremendously impacts drgs and ranged. There are niche situations like my static put out sam in the pld group on M/F Omega and the drg and brd with the war, but just deleting those debuffs would achieve that goal of loosening comp requirements.

[Kalise]

If you delete current damage type debuffs, but add non-stackable nin/drg/sam/mnk 'physical' buffs what does that achieve regarding dynamic of balance exactly?

It allows you to tune certain jobs better. Instead of all mDPS having their own physical debuff, you can opt to prune some in order to focus that particular job on being useful for other utility. Such as culling the phys debuff from NIN because they already have Trick Attack for all damage debuff.

It also allows you to distribute said debuffs around more. For example, RDM currently lacks utility. What if they got their own version of Contagion? If it didn't stack with Contagion you wouldn't risk accidentally making BLM/RDM/SMN/BRD the meta but you'd improve RDM's stand alone utility. What if MCH got physical debuff? Again, it struggles to compete with the sheer utility of BRD, so what if it got access to the debuff it liked? What if either PLD/DRK could debuff magic too? Since both of them use a bunch of magical damage it would help them in an isolated comparison vs WAR but wouldn't mean that they brought something that was "Required" if you didn't have a SMN.

Essentially, tuning the buffs/debuffs this way, allows you to change things so that not "Everyone" has access to them without significantly pushing specific classes even more (I.e. Like how DRG gets so much prioritization due to its monopoly on Piercing which directly boosts BRD/MCH).

Removing them all in their entirety, merely serves to push things straight into "Who has the most personal DPS" unless there are still some unique buffs hanging around which would continue to feed into the "Stack buffs" meta, again, not really moving the balance needle at all (Thus making it a lot of work to re-balance all the potencies to make up for the loss of these buffs to have literally no effect...)