Fixing Tank's Invulnerability Abilities Thread

[TouchandFeel]

Some off-the-cuff thoughts on bringing the invulnerables more in line with each other focusing on just duration and recast tweaks except for Living Dead.

Holmgang simply needs a longer recast time and it should be changed from 180s to 240s. To compensate for the longer recast, the duration should be increased slightly from 6s to 8s, not much but enough to maybe catch an extra auto attack or to provide that slight timing cushion.

Living Dead just needs to be redone. I understand Yoshi-P's desire to have it be "unique" due to "job identity" but you can still have that without it working the way it currently does.
Here is a rework off the top of my head.
Rise Again - recast 360s - duration 8s
If your HP drops to 0 while under the effect of Rise Again, instead of being KO'd you gain the effect of Risen
Risen - duration 8s
Your HP cannot be reduced below 1 and heals you upon activation.
Cure potency: 1200
Basically the same as Living Dead without the excessive death penalty, a small self-heal added in and an increased recast and shortened durations to compensate for the other buffs to the ability. Just something I thought of on the spur of the moment. By no means perfect but it shows how easy it would be to redo the ability but keep the general "unique" feel of it for the purpose of "job identity".

Superbolide can have it's effects stay the same but have it's duration increased from 8s to 10s and it's recast dropped to 360s.

Hallowed Ground can have it's effect stay the same but have it's duration reduced from 10s to 8s. Recast stays at 420s.

[ValentineSnow]

Well, apparently when asked about living dead Yoshi said he didn't want to change it because "job identity".

So let's look at these moves and think about what would fit each jobs identity.

PLD and WAR, I think their effects fit them well.
Hallowed ground, complete mitigation, PLD is the shield wall, complete mitigation makes sense.
Holmgang, you can't die, WAR has always been about self healing, so having the ability to not drop below 1hp and just be able to heal itself up just fits.

So DRK and GNB, these don't fit. So let's think about these jobs identity.

Gonna start with GNB, it basically got a gimped hallowed ground. How does that fit it's identity? It looks to me based on their kit, they're kind of setup as a barrier tank focused more on party support. So, simple adjustment. Superbolide: reduce your HP to 1 and render yourself impervious to most damage, party members within range gain a barrier equivalent to HP consumed.

I think the main issue with GNB's invuln, aside from being gimped hallowed, is that it means the healers have to focus on the tank because they're dropping to 1 HP. So if it made it so that the rest of the party was protected so the healers ONLY had to focus on the GNB, I feel like that would balance it out somewhat.

On to DRK, living dead is just brokenly bad and it boggles my mind that it hasn't seen ANY adjustment since it's release. To me, this move needs a ground up rework or complete replacement. So first, let's looks at DRKs identity.

DRK's lore is that it struggles with its darkside for power, the darkside wanting to take over. I think living dead could represent that perfectly. When you pop living dead, your MP is restored to full and you no longer take HP damage, but MP damage instead (since MP represents your darkness), but you don't take direct MP damage (a 50k buster won't instantly reduce your 10k MP to 0 MP), instead you take a set amount of MP damage per hit, so every hit would reduce your MP by 1k for example. This would mean you could take 10 free hits assuming you don't spend or restore MP in that time.

I feel this would be a fair compromise between DRK's lore and it's gameplay as a tank, giving it's own unique identity while giving it an effect that it can manage by itself. It would also give DRK some nuance to it's invuln skill, letting you decide if you want to spend extra MP on damage or hold back and recover MP while the effect is up.

So you may have noticed I didn't mention any recasts or durations. That's because I think they should all be 5min recast and 10s duration. Tank cooldowns have been really homogenised with this expansion, all having rampart, all having a 2min 30% mitigation, all having a short CD mitigation. So why not do the same for invulns? The effects would be the only thing that varies based on the jobs identity but they would all be 5min recast and 10s duration.

[Duskane]

superbolide should be a lower CD
maybe even had a heal buff to it

Living dead really just needs to not depend on others

[Izsha]

I really dont know why they dodnt touch holmgang. I have long said that they need to unlock IBs mitigation from tabk stance and that will allow increasing the timer for holmgang. They gave us the on demand mitigation via raw intuition but did not touch hg (except quality of life which is great). But they should just take the new HG, increase the invuln duration to 8ish seconds and up the timer to 420 and it would be fine.

[Derio]

In the Work to Game interview Yoshi P even admits to Hallowed being overpowered but they are afraid to change it due to how its been that way for so long and the backlash.

But they can at least fix GNB and DRK.

[Ladon]

Holmgang needs to be pushed up to a 5 min cooldown, though frankly I am all for them throwing all of these skills out the window. They completely break encounters more than any other skillset in the game.

[Zwynfalk]

Every invuln should do the same basic thing: Keep the tank using it from dying for 10 seconds.
They should also all have the same recast timer to maintain encounter design balance.

Holmgang has a solid concept: "I'm a berserker and while you maybe hurt me, you'll not take me out of the fight."
"Cannot be reduced to below 1 HP for 10 seconds" fits the bill and between healers watching the buff tick down and WAR's own self-healing abilities, it's an easy drawback to deal with.

Superbolide is an interesting idea, but I would personally change it to:
"Sets own HP to 50%. Renders you impervious to most attacks while preventing healing from sources other than self.
Additional Effect: Increases HP recovery via healing actions on self by 50%"
Basically, the only way you'd come out at full health would be by saving Aurora. But combining that with Gunbreaker's self shields and the fact that it sets the user to 50%, means that you'll be fine or even higher up on HP than before.

Living Dead is the most complex and troublesome. The 10 second safety net of Living Dead + the 10s of immunity from Walking Dead is really strong. The best idea I can come up with right now would be to give every attack the DRK preforms while Walking Dead a damage boost and some degree of self healing. And then if the DRK isn't healed to full before the end of Walking Dead, they get a damage down for the same amount and duration. That sounds like something that could be abused...

Hallowed Ground is really the hardest to balance because it has nothing to give ideas for downsides. All I can come up with is that using any attack other than Intervene (for the movement) ends the effect. Or maybe give a button to end the effect yourself and attacks deal no damage while it's up - allowing you to keep combos flowing and MP regenerating.

I mean the other option is to delete them all and give each tank a 10s, 90% reduction ability.

[Shurrikhan]

I too mostly prefer the idea of removing most immunity abilities completely, or at the least creating a new category of distinct-castbar boss skills against which immunities cannot prevent death or must have an overkill margin of less than X% for death to be prevented.

Ideally, I'd like for them to have a sort of utility that functions similarly in purpose to Immunities, in some cases, that follows organically from unique effects.

Let's take Superbolide for instance. At present, it's just a greatly inferior Hallowed Ground. But what if we could make that 1 HP thing... make sense? For instance:

Superbolide: Reduces you to 1 HP, instantly shielding you for half of your health removed in addition to a further 30% of your maximum HP. This shield stacks with other damage-preventing effects, but fades continuously over 6 seconds. 240-second cooldown.

OR

Superbolide: For the next 6 seconds, your damage taken is reduced by your missing %HP, to a maximum of 75% reduction. (E.g. at 1/2 HP, you take only 2/3s the normal damage, at 1/3s you take only 1/2 damage, and at 1/5th HP or lower, you take 3/4 less damage.)

Both are strong. Really strong. But, they both have interplay with healing and neither can single-handedly allow you to survive anything and everything. The first will require that you're quickly healed or it will either waste some of the shield and/or be an outright eHP loss. The second will only really protect you from follow-up auto-attacks, though it can make for some jaw-clenching moments of critical HP sustain and efficiency-centric risk-vs-reward play.

Edit: I still favor the 'Purgatory' debuff fix to Living Dead, even if it would technically be a nerf.

Living Dead: Would-be fatal damage taken over the next 10 seconds activates Walking Dead.
Walking Dead: For the next ten seconds, you cannot die but each instance of damage that would otherwise kill you generates Mortal Coil, a healing-absorption effect equal to the damage prevented. Mortal Coil cannot exceed your maximum HP at any given time and is reduced by 1 point for each point of would-be healing received. If Immortal Coil remains after 10 seconds, you die.

Note: the value remaining on Mortal Coil will be indicated by a red shield graphic over one's health bar equal to the amount.

Let Paladin have the only true Immunity/Invincibility, but at cost to mitigation resources elsewhere. Holmgang could more or less copy this mechanic from Living Dead as well to better balance it, so that it's granting no free mitigation. Moreover, all three "immunities" would have certain skills they quite simply cannot prevent death or damage from, or must have an overkill margin less than X% to survive.

[Maneesha]

Hallowed Ground : 6sec Immunity to dmg. The paladin gains a buff which grants him 2 stacks of Holy Spirit and Clemency, making both instant and by using one or the other 1 stack is consumed.Clemency has increased healing potencys. 5min cd.

Living Dead: "living dead" part is a 3sec duration, during that time the next hit kills you (any hit) and turns you into (the walking dead part) a "zombie" (or something edgy/dark knightish) for 10sec. In the "walking dead" state the drk gets the following effects: TBN will now heal the DRK for 25% of his own health instead of granting him a shield which prevents dmg and it won't grant dark arts anymore during the duration. He gets 2 Stacks on TBN and TBN has no mana cost, 2 stacks on every gauge ability. Using 1 stack of either TBN/Gauge ability will consume the stack on both, meaning he must decide on using tbn or dmg skills.He needs to be healed back to 70% before "walking dead" ends or he dies. 5min cd

Holmgang : can't drop below 1hp for 10 sec,trows out chains and sets the enemy or enemies in a 5yalm range around you in a rage status, increasing their dmg dealt to you(to account for some aoe's which may happen while they deal increased dmg,we don't want to wipe the grp :P) for the duration of the effect and forces him/them to attack only you.Grants 2 stacks of Equilibrium,some Gauge skills (same as drk/pld), using any of those skills reduces the stack by 1. 5min cd.

Superbolide: 60% dmg reduction for 8sec, 20%(maybe 10%?) dmg reflect shield for the duration it lasts(a better vengeance basically).Gives 2 stacks of Aurora (also increasing its potencys) and 2 stacks on skills that uses cartridges (not sure which skills thou). 5min cd.

The idea behind this is:
a) give self heal capability in some way(in 8/24man content not that important,but helpful for 4man or solo content)
b) give potential dps ability (high hitting one/aoe) to spice things up, but be very close potency wise so it stays balanced and make more use of the "charge's system"
c) have same cd and almost same duration (duration differs due to difference in damage mitigation,difference in healing needed)
d) be useful when soloing things/solo content
e) keep them different so that every job has its own "job identity"

For paladin i cant really decide which offensive skill to pick to give the stacks, the option for single target or aoe dps should be there, but limited to only 2 uses and since they don't use gauge for anything offensive its a bit hard to decide. Maybe grant 2 uses ,to pick from,of Clemency (with increased healing potencys), Holy Spirit,Holy Circle and/or Attonement. I don't know, it should just be very close aoe/single target to the other 3tanks potencys.

[Maneesha]

Double Post because of limitations

For DRK its more or less the same and we keep the risk of him dying,but the drk himself has ways to deal this effect and allows this skill to be used in solo play, but he must somehow restore 20% of his own health to not die in solo play. Not getting "Dark Arts" from "TBN" might be a discussion point, but i didnt really see any other skill other then "TBN" that could be turned into a selfheal potent enough so that he might have ways to deal with his imminent dead and giving him "Dark Arts" on top of that might be too good. (maybe abissal drain might work for that?)

Warriors basically the same, but it turned into a "Provoke"/"Ultimatum" skill for its duration with the increased dmg from mobs(setting them into a rage mode) for more "job identity". He cant die for 10sec and the skill is only used to prevent dead, so this rage and increased dmg of mobs is just cosmetic, we can do with or without it. 2 stacks on Equilibrium is to deal with the 1hp effect when the skill ends (if one chooses too) or 2 stacks on Gauge skills (not sure which, maybe 2 fell cleaves/inner beast or 2 decimates/steel cyclones).

Gunbreaker is also tough.. a better version of vengeance kinda sounds appropriate, like he casts a shield on him and turns it on fire (or something like that) and that's the reason why it reflects dmg back to the attacker for every hit they do. I through of a 80% dmg reduction and 6sec duration on the start, but if he had such a great mitigation there will be no reason to ever choose to use a stack or two of Aurora. Speaking of Aurora just increased potencys might not be enough and maybe the skill should also have lower duration, since its a hot, so that he can heal himself/others with the buffed version even faster (like clemency). Then we have cartridges abilities, not sure which to pick, since they are also a combo like skills...