Quote Originally Posted by Absurdity View Post
Probably worth adding is that yes, NF can be extremely powerful but only if you know what you're doing. It requires certain conditions to be met and in that sense it is very similar to TBN, if you just press it on cooldown you might as well not use it at all.
I agree that NF requires proper usage of it to make it shine, but to be fair any defensive ability requires certain conditions to be met to get the most out of it and all of them require a sense of knowing what you are doing.

While NF requires more knowledge, thought and planning like TBN does, the difference between NF and the rest of the short recast defensives is the ceiling of gain possible when knowing how to use it.
If used during normal combo rotation it may not seem that impressive, but lining it up with Infuriate/Inner Chaos and Inner Release, which isn't too difficult since the 25s recast is so close to 30s, gives a very strong amount of healing back that can surpass the HP saved by the other defensives.
So if you used NF about every 30s; you basically end up with one that returns a lesser amount of HP every 30s interval that doesn't overlap with Infuriate or Inner Release, one that returns a good amount of HP that can be a bit better than the other defensives every 60s by lining it up with Infuriate/Inner Chaos, and one that returns a large amount of HP every 90s when lined up with Inner Release.
Now of course this requires you to sync the ability with your own timing and so makes it more difficult to sync it to the timings of the encounter mechanics, so you may not be able to line up NF, Inner Chaos or Inner Release and spike damage like a buster, that much is true. But in such a case that is happening and you aren't able to cover the buster with you other defensives, WAR has the option to fall back on Raw Intuition if they need to and then just go back to using NF when they can get more HP from it. As I said before, their bases are covered. When dps burst isn't lining up or when you really really need to make sure you aren't one-shot, RI has you covered. Every other time, NF.

While they both do require you to coordinate your usage of the abilities, their feedback loops to the player are polar opposites.
When you use NF poorly you simply minimize your gains and when you use NF well you are handsomely rewarded. This is a positive feedback loop.
When you use TBN poorly you lose a good chunk of dps and when you use it well you simply aren't punished. This is a negative feedback loop.