Invulns: Problems and Solutions

[Hierro]

I think invulns are a great way to incentivize bringing one tank over another. If you bring a WAR, you just don't have to think anymore about tank busters in E8S. I like that.

[Absurdity]

I think invulns are a great way to incentivize bringing one tank over another. If you bring a WAR, you just don't have to think anymore about tank busters in E8S. I like that.

There's also a bit more to invulns than just "use them as much as you can to trivialize tank busters". It's definitely not a thing in every encounter but let's take E3S as the most recent example.


Leviathan does 4 tank busters over the whole fight which hits twice, the first hit applying a vuln that makes you unable to survive the 2nd hit. You negate the first two with both tank invulns, share the 3rd and now you have to think about what your respective invuln does for the 4th.

The last tank buster happens shortly before Black Smokers. If I remember correctly on GNB you have Superbolide ready again even if you used it on the 2nd buster and you definitely have Holmgang ready on WAR.



Now you could use Superbolide on the buster but Black Smokers is coming up soon and you might want to use it there so your healer doesn't have to worry about you for 8 seconds while they are busy with mechanics, which means you might want to share the 4th buster as well.



On warrior however sharing it means you have to use a defensive there and Holmgang isn't gonna do jack for Black Smokers since it deals continuous damage to the tanks. This means as a warrior you probably want to Holmgang the 4th buster and consequently save all your other defensives to help with damage during Black Smokers. This means you would Holm the 1st Buster, Superbolide the 2nd, share the 3rd and Holm the 4th. Now you go into Black Smokers with both tanks having all their defensive CDs and your co-tank potentially also having their invuln, making the mechanic a whole lot easier to heal.


If we would just use them on cooldown you could holmgang the 3rd buster if you used it on the 1st but this would mean you 100% have to share the 4th which means less mitigation for Black Smokers.

[Hierro]

There's also a bit more to invulns than just "use them as much as you can to trivialize tank busters". It's definitely not a thing in every encounter but let's take E3S as the most recent example.


Leviathan does 4 tank busters over the whole fight which hits twice, the first hit applying a vuln that makes you unable to survive the 2nd hit. You negate the first two with both tank invulns, share the 3rd and now you have to think about what your respective invuln does for the 4th.

The last tank buster happens shortly before Black Smokers. If I remember correctly on GNB you have Superbolide ready again even if you used it on the 2nd buster and you definitely have Holmgang ready on WAR.



Now you could use Superbolide on the buster but Black Smokers is coming up soon and you might want to use it there so your healer doesn't have to worry about you for 8 seconds while they are busy with mechanics, which means you might want to share the 4th buster as well.



On warrior however sharing it means you have to use a defensive there and Holmgang isn't gonna do jack for Black Smokers since it deals continuous damage to the tanks. This means as a warrior you probably want to Holmgang the 4th buster and consequently save all your other defensives to help with damage during Black Smokers. This means you would Holm the 1st Buster, Superbolide the 2nd, share the 3rd and Holm the 4th. Now you go into Black Smokers with both tanks having all their defensive CDs and your co-tank potentially also having their invuln, making the mechanic a whole lot easier to heal.


If we would just use them on cooldown you could holmgang the 3rd buster if you used it on the 1st but this would mean you 100% have to share the 4th which means less mitigation for Black Smokers.

Or you could go DRK and WAR and invuln all the busters in E3S. gg ez

[ForteNightshade]

If we would just use them on cooldown you could holmgang the 3rd buster if you used it on the 1st but this would mean you 100% have to share the 4th which means less mitigation for Black Smokers.

Honestly, Leviathan sort of hurts your argument. Black Smokers does comically low damage for a pseudo-tank buster. A healer needs to slap little more than a Regen and you'll be fine. Saving your invuln for it is a waste unless you have nothing better to use it on. Which segues into the actual problem this expansion: tanks aren't taking nearly enough damage. Idol of Darkness may be even worse than Leviathan for how pathetic the outgoing damage is. Even Shiva, despite having a reasonably tight DPS check, deals surprisingly little damage to tanks. This is what has made invulns feel more overpowered than they have in the past, Holmgang notwithstanding. We simply have too many options between tanks and healers nowadays. And the bosses aren't being designed to compensate but rather made easier.

That all said, I get your intended meaning. Invulns can be interesting, and I generally prefer them staying as is. I think the root of the problem is more the lackluster damage we're seeing in Shadowbringers. If bosses had more mechanic that "scared" the party, invulns become more of a decision. "Do we want to ignore mechanic x or y?" At the moment, you just use them on nearly everything.

[Vyrerus]

Black smokers comically low damage

I mean, Spilling Wave deals roughly 23000 damage per wave without mitigation, and each tank gets hit by these 12 times. When it was new that was like between 1/6th and 1/5th of your total HP per hit, and so it was enough to kill both tanks twice over with no healing/mitigation. Even with 50% mitigation you'd still take your maximum HP in damage, in i450~i460ish gear., if you could keep that mitigation running the entire time, which you can't. If they sped up the interval any further the healers wouldn't be able to keep up with healing all of the DPS/themselves for dealing with the actual smokers while also keeping the tanks alive, without holding more oGCDs than they do already for that.

I mean, sure, it's more than manageable, but I wouldn't call it comically low.

[ForteNightshade]

I mean, Spilling Wave deals roughly 23000 damage per wave without mitigation, and each tank gets hit by these 12 times. When it was new that was like between 1/6th and 1/5th of your total HP per hit, and so it was enough to kill both tanks twice over with no healing/mitigation. Even with 50% mitigation you'd still take your maximum HP in damage, in i450~i460ish gear., if you could keep that mitigation running the entire time, which you can't. If they sped up the interval any further the healers wouldn't be able to keep up with healing all of the DPS/themselves for dealing with the actual smokers while also keeping the tanks alive, without holding more oGCDs than they do already for that.

I mean, sure, it's more than manageable, but I wouldn't call it comically low.

That's going to depend on ilvl. Looking at one of my own clears, it dealt roughly 15,000 with only Rampant. The Scholar put Aetherpact on and completely ignored me. In fact, they cancelled it or the tether ran out not even half way through. For a twelve hit move, I shouldn't be able to survive with that little amount of mitigation and healing even at i470. Although, I'll admit they were playing "how low can I go" given I dropped to 12k at one point. It says a lot about the mechanic when I sat on Vengeance and Thrill just so I could cheese Temporary Current. Even at i450, I'd only need to add Raw, Equilibrium or slightly more healing though I wouldn't be eating things for damage at that point anyway.

But this highlights why I've been routinely critical of E3S. Vengeance and Thrill existed so I could cheese his dash or feed Shake It Off. Otherwise, Raw/Nascent and Holmgang were all I needed for every single mechanic he does. At least in terms of self mitigation. For the third fight in a Savage tier, I'd describe that as comically low.

[Vyrerus]

That's going to depend on ilvl. Looking at one of my own clears, it dealt roughly 15,000 with only Rampant. The Scholar put Aetherpact on and completely ignored me. In fact, they cancelled it or the tether ran out not even half way through. For a twelve hit move, I shouldn't be able to survive with that little amount of mitigation and healing even at i470. Although, I'll admit they were playing "how low can I go" given I dropped to 12k at one point. It says a lot about the mechanic when I sat on Vengeance and Thrill just so I could cheese Temporary Current. Even at i450, I'd only need to add Raw, Equilibrium or slightly more healing though I wouldn't be eating things for damage at that point anyway.

But this highlights why I've been routinely critical of E3S. Vengeance and Thrill existed so I could cheese his dash or feed Shake It Off. Otherwise, Raw/Nascent and Holmgang were all I needed for every single mechanic he does. At least in terms of self mitigation. For the third fight in a Savage tier, I'd describe that as comically low.

With a couple of exceptions, no Savage fight has ever had punishing tank mechanics once you've reach iLvl that's considered BiS iLvl/maximum defense for that tier. At i450 you'd have nearly 20k less HP, less everything, and your healer would have been healing you for less. You would need more mitigation for at least half of the hits, or at least more healing. Comically low would be not having to pop anything at all for it.

[ForteNightshade]

With a couple of exceptions, no Savage fight has ever had punishing tank mechanics once you've reach iLvl that's considered BiS iLvl/maximum defense for that tier. At i450 you'd have nearly 20k less HP, less everything, and your healer would have been healing you for less. You would need more mitigation for at least half of the hits, or at least more healing. Comically low would be not having to pop anything at all for it.

No, you don't. I've tanked it at lower ilvls. That's the whole point. You never needed much of anything to survive because it simply isn't hitting hard enough. The healer was at a much lower ilvl than me yet still only used Aetherpact. Like I said, adding Raw/Nascent or Equilibrium is all I need to do there. Although, given I have every cooldown by that point. In prog, I'll overmitigate and it basically doesn't exist. In fact, I've healed myself through it because Warrior. For the third fight of the tier, it shouldn't be that easy, especially when it's essentially the last "big" attack he does.