Let's Talk Tanks

[Aiph]

I just want DRK to have those 2 slots filled on my main hotbar.

Over the 4 tank jobs, I’ve standardized the hotbar so that the buttons pretty much do the same thing (all my jobs have a similar setup so that it’s easier to play if I become out of practice on a job). The only differences are magic on PLD, GB combo on GB, how often a WAR can do his single and multi target resource using moves and DRK bar moves.

In the end, PLD has one move too many (spills onto a 3rd controller hotbar and DRK has 2 moves - 1 a regular combo move - too few)

[Kabooa]

"But what about the Magic?"

An open, modular stance-combo system is well and good, but where would the Dark Knight's spells such as Unleash and Unmend fit in?

Originally, I had pegged AoE weaponskills within the 9-skills 3 basic stances would have.

Thinking further on it, one of the more appealing parts of Dark Knight is the idea of mixing dark magic into swordplay, a more direct and less elegant analogue to Paladins and their magic kits.

In this regard, we would have two specific AoE sets in the basic kit (But by no means the only ones)

The Neutral-to-Neutral weaponskill and Unleash. The NtN would follow the "Grants a short term buff" to the Dark Knight we want the modular combo abilities to have. Unleash itself would be an MP based skill that enhances your weaponskills along with an upfront burst of energy. (Perhaps even a potential Dark Side mechanic)

Spinning Slash
Weaponskill - Neutral Posture
Effect: Deliver an attack to enemies within 5y of the Dark Knight for X potency. The Dark Knight ends in the Neutral Posture.
Bonus Effect: Grants the Dark Knight "Whirling Step" for 9 seconds, causing all single target weaponskills to also strike enemies within 5y of the primary target.

Unleash
Ability
Cost: Some amount of MP
Effect: Deals X unaspected potency to enemies within 5y of the Dark Knight.

Potential Bonus A: Grants the Dark Knight "Blackblade". When weaponskills hit enemies, Blackblade deals an additional Y potency. Blackblade lasts for 3 weaponskills.

Potential Bonus B: Grants 12 seconds of Darkside.

Darkside does 'a thing'.

Unmend, Abyssal Drain, and Stalwart Soul would follow a similar theme - Spells with an upfront burst and an auxillary effect, or, if going with a new Darkside Mechanic, contribute to its duration.

[InfiniDragon]

Oh hey another tank disc--- oh wait. It's another "change Dark Knight" thread in disguise. ._.

But since the point of this thread is talking about what they won't do, I've always wanted DRK to be the undisputed king of self heal. Make it like FF Tactics where they get sword magic (thanks SE for actually doing that for PLD with Confiteor as that move looks awesome), give them Sanguine Blade/Night Sword instead of this new bastardized Abyssal, lower that bad boy to 25-30 seconds and then actually give it good healing so they can constantly be healing themselves like Nascent Flash. Or, make Stalwart Soul heal you like Souleater does. Put Sole Survivor back on and make it have a decent cd. Make the Walking Dead state make all of your attacks heal you, so you can help with removing the state.

As for the stance thing, it's kinda cool in theory. But I don't want them to actually visually change stances like Sieg does, because the reason he handles his greatsword like that is to compensate for the weapon's massive weight that trying to use a weapon like that would require (even still it's a fantasy so he's pulling off stuff that real people wouldn't), whereas we can handle greatswords in XIV more or less like a normal sword (aka Cloud-style anime speed), so the "weighted" stances wouldn't make much sense.

[Kabooa]

Oh hey another tank disc--- oh wait. It's another "change Dark Knight" thread in disguise. ._.

It started as an example in another thread.

I'm more than willing to talk about other tanks in here if I get more than drive-by "It ain't gud anymore" comments.

For instance, lets talk Gunbreaker.

While I don't have any misgivings with the current implementation, there's so much room to expand it (and so many ways we know it won't go) that I hope it would do more than add more powder combos. Get some more kit interplay, as currently it is fairly linear. This itself adds some measure of pressure for uptime, as any time off the boss creates drift.

The "Trigger" mechanic for example can be expanded, as well as adding not only having more flexible weaponskills (Powder skills don't interrupt your main combo for example) but have their effects differ depending on which combo you're currently in.

Something like

Burst Strike and Fated Circle grant "Trigger" for 9 seconds. Trigger allows the use of Continuation. Every 3 seconds, Trigger advances a stage, allowing a different use of Continuation.

[Shurrikhan]

Oh hey another tank disc--- oh wait. It's another "change Dark Knight" thread in disguise. ._.

The twelve forbid anyone so much as use Dark Knight as an example for broader changes from which every tank could benefit...

@Vampire DRK: Sounds good.
@DRK Greatsword-wielding: But, is it for the best that they only arbitrarily follow physics? At least before there was a visual tell. Glow = sword was effectively lightened, which made sense then for Blood Weapon. The now-defunct Spinning Slash and Power Slash, on the other hand, still left mostly-reasonably-sized greatswords as they should be been. Would it be beneficial to acknowledge the weight of the sword to give it more visual oomph, and trade that for speed only when we have an excuse to do so (e.g. a soulfed blade)?

[Kabooa]

Lets talk a little about Paladins.

The discussion with Dark Knight introduces a different modular stance concept, but in reality it's more of a state shift. The Dark Knight is shifting through States. While not too different from traditional 'stances', it's mostly focused on just one part of its kit - The Swordplay.

Paladins are in a different boat. As Freeknights evolving from the Gladiator class, the Paladin is a job that can, thematically, make use of traditional stance systems of exclusionary specialization. A gladiator fights against a wide variety of enemies and deals with a wide variety of situations. As a Freeknight, they travel the realm, being broadened further.

It only makes sense that the Paladin freeknight, coming from the Gladiator, has developed multiple fighting styles it shifts between while taking on enemies. So lets talk about that.

First lets set a baseline. What is / isn't changed / excluded when a stance swaps.

Emergency skills will not change based on stance. Hallowed Ground would be usable across all stances.

Basic combo structure doesn't change. The A->B->C structure can remain.

Offensive ability and reactive skills would change. Skills like Old Shield Bash, Spirits Within, Circle of Scorn, etc.

Combo finishers will change. Skills such as Royal Authority, Rage of Halone, and so forth are given greater differentiation and then change as stances swap.

A Gladiator starts with one stance - lets call it "Gladiator's Tempo". This is the equivalent of the old Sword Oath in concept. It focuses around quick and efficient sword attacks with a few tricks with the shield. Its benefits are about taking advantage of skills that hit multiple times by adding flat bonuses. To create cross stance incentive, that means we create bonuses that the other stances give to specific non-changing skills, that you then swap stances to take advantage of a combined effect.

As an example: Rage of Halone is an attack that strikes for low damage multiple times. When you use this skill, you ideally want to be in Gladiator's Tempo.

Royal Authority grants your next finisher a mirrored strike, where it is performed once more at reduced potency.

A basic skill flow then is Royal Authority finisher -> Swapping to Gladiator's Tempo -> Rage of Halone.

We compliment this incentive by having Stance exclusive OGCDs work on separate cooldowns. Your aim is to set up windows of stacking advantages before settling back into one Stance most appropriate to your current needs.

[InfiniDragon]

It started as an example in another thread.

I'm more than willing to talk about other tanks in here if I get more than drive-by "It ain't gud anymore" comments.

For instance, lets talk Gunbreaker.

While I don't have any misgivings with the current implementation, there's so much room to expand it (and so many ways we know it won't go) that I hope it would do more than add more powder combos. Get some more kit interplay, as currently it is fairly linear. This itself adds some measure of pressure for uptime, as any time off the boss creates drift.

The "Trigger" mechanic for example can be expanded, as well as adding not only having more flexible weaponskills (Powder skills don't interrupt your main combo for example) but have their effects differ depending on which combo you're currently in.

Something like

Burst Strike and Fated Circle grant "Trigger" for 9 seconds. Trigger allows the use of Continuation. Every 3 seconds, Trigger advances a stage, allowing a different use of Continuation.

It's tough for me to think of a way to change GNB because I really like what we have now, and don't have any expansions to compare past versions. But the only thing I can think of I'd like to see if there was actually a feasible way for XIV to properly implement it is the trigger pulls on attacks. It can't be an oGCD since it would be the return of the 4.0 DA everyone hated and not work so well on server ticks, but if there was a way it would be really cool to see the classic Squall mechanic in there.

I do think the current Renzokuken, Continuation is a good trade though, feels really satisfying.

[Shurrikhan]

It's tough for me to think of a way to change GNB because I really like what we have now, and don't have any expansions to compare past versions. But the only thing I can think of I'd like to see if there was actually a feasible way for XIV to properly implement it is the trigger pulls on attacks. It can't be an oGCD since it would be the return of the 4.0 DA everyone hated and not work so well on server ticks, but if there was a way it would be really cool to see the classic Squall mechanic in there.

I do think the current Renzokuken, Continuation is a good trade though, feels really satisfying.

Same. I have trouble imagining much to improve Renzokuken without relying on action combat elements (trigger while stabbing forward = increased stab speed = increased penetration; trigger while pulling the stab back and free from the enemy = extend the wound and recover from the strike more quickly, usually to combo that momentum into a hastened further strike). A half-second of imagining that with SE's netcode, server quality, and scarcity of server locations is probably enough to induce nightmares, or at least a headache... It'd have to change over to almost complete client trust, and would then have run a fine line between difficulty and reward as not to oblige PC players to optimize their use via hacking or gameplay-controlling 3rd party tools.

[Kabooa]

More traditional triggers to me make the most sense coming off specific weaponskills, namely finishers with longer recast times. This is still working within the system instead of having an actual trigger mechanic though.

For example - Solid Barrel is a 5.0s recast timer. It generates a powder charge. 2.5s into its recast, Solid Barrel morphs into its Trigger OGCD, bypassing the GCD similar to old Empyreal Arrow.

[Kabooa]

Lets talk Tenacity. That stat that's actually way better than everything else, except it comes out to less damage so it's not. It shaves off a tiny bit of Determination's damage bonus but adds in more healing and damage reduction. Much like current tanks, it's a bloated stat, an attempt to woo tanks away from Direct hit and Critical strike, but obviously it can't do this because nothing warrants it being useful other than blind bleeding edge progression.

Lets run with the assumption that the other sub-stats also get some rework or tunings, and lets talk about Tenacity and what it could be.

For one, lets get rid of it being More Det. (Though Det and Ten builds are pretty dumb. You won't set it any records, but lol at having effectively a second Darkside)

Tenacity currently:
Increases average damage at about 70-75% the ratio of other stats <= (Here's the problem)
Reduces damage taken.
Increases healing taken.

So lets do the reasonable thing and BURN IT TO THE GROUND.

Tenacity should make -tanking better-. Not "damage dealt", not "damage taken", but -tanking- overall. It should be the stat you work around breakpoints for before dipping into others. So how can we do that?

Idfk. Ya'll fickle. So lets try some things.

Tenacity does several things.
A) It -increases the potency- of offensives buffs the Tank applies to themselves.
B) It -increases the effective duration- of defensive and utility buffs the Tank applies to themselves.
C) It -reduces- the cost of actions.

So lets apply Tenacity to our Dark Knight discussed so far.

"Spinning Slash" applies "Whirling Step". This classifies as a utility buff. Whirling Step's effective duration (and thus overall use) increases with Tenacity.

A new Low-to-High Posture skill applies 100% parry chance for the next three incoming attacks. A defensive buff, thus the amount of attacks deflected increase, increasing its overall amount.

A Neutral-To-High posture skill grants the Dark Knight's next attack from High Posture to deal 30% more damage. An offensive buff, Tenacity would -increase- the 30% bonus, granting higher damage.

Blood Weaponskills would apply "Blood Weapon", a utility effect granting the Dark Knight MP when landing weaponskills for a few attacks. Tenacity is a dual bonus here - Resource reduction on Blood skills and increasing the amount of Blood Weapon charges per skill used.

In short, Tenacity serves to improve the -core functions of the tanking kit-. It would be the equivalent of Spellspeed's current state for Black Mage - Something you can tune around your own wants before moving to another sub-stat to focus.