Thoughts on PLD/GNB/DRK

[Aegis_Harvey]

Having played EW since early access launched, maining the same PLD I've had since ARR, subsequently leveling DRK and GNB to 90 in that order, and getting as far as starting (though not yet clearing) P1S I wanted to add my thoughts on Tank jobs, specifically PLD/GNB/DRK with my MRD only being 18, to the mix. My goal is to state my impressions and give suggestions for small changes (albeit some with lengthy justifications) that could be made without a total job rework.

Paladin (PLD):
Overall PLD feels great to play. Not having a gap closer for lower levels is probably the most conspicuous issue, to the point where I don't do 50/60/70/80 or Leveling roulettes with what I consider my main job. For High-end, it's no secret PLD dps might be a little low even granting that PLD "should" do the least dps of the four. Lastly, in ShB it was easier, visually, to track where you were with Requiescat because of its interaction with the MP bar. It's easier to get lost now that it uses status bar stacks, especially on learning new content; presumably new players have the same problem throughout.

PLD Suggestions
> Have Requiescat stacks be represented in PLDs (currently) very simple Job Gauge.

> Shield Bash oGCD, 10s / 4x GCD Recast time. Gives low level PLD something extra to do in lieu of gap closer. Adds a tiny bit of extra DPS.

> Rebalance Goring Blade / Confiteor combo DoT to makeup PLD dps shortcoming. Have DoT do same/more total damage per cast with shorter duration. If an extra GB combo can be squeezed into the overall rotation, this should be enough to fix the dps discrepancy, though it could end up being too strong.

> Rebalance Confiteor combo to give BoV more oomph. The numbers really don't match the visual. Move 150 potency from BoFaith and 200 potency from BoTruth to BoValor, for 780 potency on main target. Move DoT to BoFaith, make BoTruth do full AoE damage, move all MP regen to BoValor.

[Aegis_Harvey]

Gunbreaker (GNB):
GNB also feels great, but at pretty much every level range. It's enjoyment level is a very close 2nd for me, of all jobs, to PLD. Continuation makes the job feel like tanking as SAM, which is not a bad thing, but this is a source of the popular criticism that GNB's playstyle works against its tank role a bit when it comes to oGCDs.

GNB Suggestions
> Increase Continuation range to match SAM's Iaijutsu.

> Fated Circle and Double Down grant Ready to Blast. Lean in to Hypervelocity!

> Remove the 4s bonus 15%+ from Corundum, change it to a flat 20% for 8s.

> Add a 10% damage reduction buff for 2.5 seconds to the Enhanced Continuation trait. This reduces the penalty of weaving for dps. Gnashing Fang combo would effectively give a 2.5 s + 2 GCD buff, meaning it gets marginally worse with Skill Speed but it probably averages out the same with the marginally higher ammo generation and recast reduction. Gives GNB's AoE toolkit a mitigation element that all other tanks have some form of (Req heals, DRK MP fueling TBN, WAR doing WAR stuff) when considering my Ready to Blast suggestion.

[Aegis_Harvey]

Dark Knight (DRK):
There are two things DRKs can really feel. One, the dps/burst dps is very obviously the best - when the EX2 crystals die and your add disappears while the other lives, you know you're pumping out loads of damage and this feels good. Two, when bosses are not scary but dungeon pulls are, this feels bad. DRK feels starkly different from the other tanks to play and to heal for, especially in HW/ShB/EW dungeons. They need a change for the sake of both old players and new players to bring DRK in line with the way people expect tanks to handle dungeons these days. Other things I've noticed, I will not mince words on: Oblation is bad, Living Dead is bad, TBN is great except for when it's bad. I could point to more, but those are beyond the scope of the suggestions I'd like to make here.

DRK Suggestions
> Quietus reduces the recast time of Abyssal Drain/CaS by 15 seconds. This is the smallest change I can think of to give DRK the help they need in dungeons without affecting Trials/Raids significantly, short of just making Quietus heal like Abyssal Drain does. We know they can implement this mechanic thanks to Enhanced Unmend (lol), this is a property that should be added to the Enhanced Blackblood trait do it takes effect as early as possible.

> Oblation. Even the name doesn't make sense - did they mean the archaic form of Ablation? To take away incoming damage? How would this move be an Oblation, an offering to God?
Even if you could put both charges on one target it wouldn't be as good as Intervention or Corundum and would cost twice the oGCD windows.
Rename it Ablation, target party member takes 10% less damage, you are healed for the damage prevented. Works like Oblation for party wide damage and a double tank buster scenario, only with better TBN synergy and uses only one oGCD.

> TBN is great. It scales with your Effective HP, meaning it will eventually be bad. By i575 with food, I was noticing tank busters and raid damage couldn't reliably break my TBN in EX2, and now at i580 it's the same problem even without food. As a result DRK becomes less fun to main tank with the stronger it gets, because TBN becomes effectively more costly.
At a minimum, the MP cost of TBN should be halved (the free attack on break becomes a +1500 net MP instead of a +0 net MP). This would emphasize placing TBN strategically where it needs to go to break every time (+1500 net MP over just using EoS) compared to current cost (+0 net MP over EoS) and compared to no cost / free attack guaranteed (mindless mash whenever CD comes up).

[Aegis_Harvey]

> Living Dead is indefensible on DRK. There is no use case where it isn't flat-out worse than the comparable cooldowns, Holmgang and Superbolide (imo, Hallowed Ground belongs in a separate category).
In order for these three cooldowns to have any benefit, they must be used within a window where you are certain your HP will drop below 1, otherwise LD and Holm do nothing, and Bolide will vary somewhere between slight penalty to slight benefit, averaging out to doing nothing (contrast with Hallowed Ground, which will always have a benefit). These are emergency situations, to which LD's very generous 10 second window is a paradox - if you need that big a window for emergency use, it isn't an emergency use.
Assuming, then, that you pop your cooldown within 1 second of needing it, Bolide and Holm effectively grant 9 seconds of life-saving time and LD grants 10 seconds.
In that 9 seconds with no external healing or crits, my GNB can heal itself to around 20k HP with Aurora and Corundum (roughly 28% HP), my PLD could heal itself for 56k HP with just Clemency, WAR can probably fully heal itself, even a lvl 30 MRD could heal at least 20% HP with Thrill of Battle. My DRK can heal itself for 7k HP, only having time for abyssal drain and one syphon strike, 11k HP if combos line up for two syphon strikes (somewhere between 10% and 15% HP). To put that into perspective, a lvl 42 WAR is better prepared to go from saved by Holmgang to stopping a boss from killing them with the next tank buster - with one button - than a lvl 90 DRK is to go from saved by LD to stopping themselves from killing them, by a wide margin. In my example Abyssal Drain heals a 72k HP DRK for 2750, so the only way for a DRK to actually save themselves from their own ability is to be actively tanking 25 targets. This is how absurd LD currently is.
As such, the LD mechanic would make sense on a tank that focuses on self healing, but instead is placed on the only tank that is ostensibly focused on self shielding (arguably, WAR is also better at shielding than DRK). My suggestion, thus, forks out into two possibilities.

Either:
Remove Living Dead and replace it with a copy of Hallowed Ground. Call it Dispersion, make it turn you into the Living Shadow jet-black shader effect. It can maybe take away some of your HP or deal AoE damage on activation to give it some flavor but functionally it's the same as Hallowed Ground. Yes it's boring, but at least it works.

Or, Keep Living Dead, but when it activates it gives you two buffs: Walking Dead for 2 seconds that gives you a Holmgang-type "can't drop below 1HP" effect just so you don't get gimped by lag; and Rigor Mortis, a shield for 100% Max HP that lasts 10 seconds. You'll still need to be healed, but at least it's no longer actively working against the tools DRK has.

[shao32]

you can bypass the post limit by editing the initial post and copy paste the rest of your post on it. ^^

[Absurdity]

Gunbreaker (GNB):
GNB Suggestions
> Increase Continuation range to match SAM's Iaijutsu.

> Fated Circle and Double Down grant Ready to Blast. Lean in to Hypervelocity!

> Remove the 4s bonus 15%+ from Corundum, change it to a flat 20% for 8s.

I can agree with adding more range to Continuation...and that's about it.


Hard no to adding even more Continuation, GnB already has issues with weaving mitigation during burst windows and we certainly don't need to make that even worse.


And making HoC 20% mit for 8 seconds defeats the entire purpose of those new abilities. They're supposed to only provide that increased mitigation for 4 seconds to make timing them correctly important.

[Aegis_Harvey]

I can agree with adding more range to Continuation...and that's about it.


Hard no to adding even more Continuation, GnB already has issues with weaving mitigation during burst windows and we certainly don't need to make that even worse.


And making HoC 20% mit for 8 seconds defeats the entire purpose of those new abilities. They're supposed to only provide that increased mitigation for 4 seconds to make timing them correctly important.

My friend, I don't believe you've read my entire suggestion.

On second thought, I'd agree having Double Down grant Ready to Blast is overkill because it already lines up so well with Bow Shock and Blasting Zone, but having Fated Circle grant it doesn't add to that problem at all - Fated Circle is just AoE Burst Strike, and Burst Strike grants Ready to Blast.

GNB having issues with weaving mitigation is exactly why I suggest adding mitigation to the weaving. In my hypothetical, timing a Burst Strike (or Fated Circle) well grants you that short window of 10% mitigation for a big hit, and you can swap the order of a 1-2-3 combo and BS in your rotation to get that Hypervelocity sooner without losing anything. Furthermore, the entire Gnashing Fang string becomes a ~7.5 second 10% mit every 30 seconds, independently of when you decide to spend ammo for a Burst strike.

Since this change would give GNB that timing-based mitigation bonus, HoC would then be free to be changed to a flat mitigation... which is exactly why I suggested it in the first place. Besides, HoC having higher and higher mitigation numbers up front actively works against its Excog heal component, Catharsis of Corundum:

Suppose a hit is coming in for 70% of your MaxHP and you're at full health. If you prevent 30% of it, the net damage is 49%, bringing you to 51%, and your Catharsis will probably be wasted as you're healed to full. If you were to block 20% and 10% in my hypothetical, with multiplicative stacking your mitigation is effectively 28%, so the net damage is 50.4%, bringing you to 49.6%, triggering Catharsis. With my earlier numbers, Catharsis heals ~12k out of 72k (~16.7% of Max HP), so your HP lands at 66.3%. If you time the same hit poorly as HoC currently is, with 15% mit and Catharsis triggering you'd still end up at 57.2%. The 30% mitigation is actually the weakest of these three scenarios. Similar to TBN's problem with %mitigation, HoC's maximum benefit only happens when you're guaranteed Catharsis will trigger. In the edge case where you're below 50% HP so Catharsis will trigger automatically and the heavy hit will be reduced by 30%, you'd probably just use Bolide instead.

[NeoDivinity]

Suppose a hit is coming in for 70% of your MaxHP and you're at full health. If you prevent 30% of it, the net damage is 49%, bringing you to 51%, and your Catharsis will probably be wasted as you're healed to full. If you were to block 20% and 10% in my hypothetical, with multiplicative stacking your mitigation is effectively 28%, so the net damage is 50.4%, bringing you to 49.6%, triggering Catharsis. With my earlier numbers, Catharsis heals ~12k out of 72k (~16.7% of Max HP), so your HP lands at 66.3%. If you time the same hit poorly as HoC currently is, with 15% mit and Catharsis triggering you'd still end up at 57.2%. The 30% mitigation is actually the weakest of these three scenarios. Similar to TBN's problem with %mitigation, HoC's maximum benefit only happens when you're guaranteed Catharsis will trigger. In the edge case where you're below 50% HP so Catharsis will trigger automatically and the heavy hit will be reduced by 30%, you'd probably just use Bolide instead.

I agree upon some points buuut....
May sounds good taking your hypothesis as truth but TBs does hit not based on HP nor hit for only this low amount of damage to only take 70% of it, they hit waay higher, thats why you have to put in most scenarios a 30% or 20% mit on top of the HoC/Holy Shelt/TBN. Catharsis it is a neat resource but works as a backup for what i feel on the job's gameplay.
If youre talking about dungeons and normal trials then timing or not the new cd serves no purpose, just like the new Warrior oGCD AoE is only effective in dungeons and casual content, the new mechanic of timing the cds properly is only useful on savage/future ultimate contents.

Briging it from 15% 4secs to 20% 8 secs would make it super strong. you already get 100% of benefit from it Catharsis proccing or not, because you'll get that heal regardless if the times run out.
You also have to remember that not every time you'll have a 30% mitigation to put on top HoC, sometimes all you have is a 20% or even a reprisal. Also Off healers and team mates tends to also shield or mitigate TBs in some cases and Bolide will only be avaiable once or twice per encounter.

From all 3 tanks i dare to say that the only quick cd that is lacking some buffs is TBN wich does not provide any survivability at all and if it does not break you also lose damage, while Dark Mind can be useful this savage tier on most cases its just a useless cooldown that should've been reworked long time ago.

[Aegis_Harvey]

May sounds good taking your hypothesis as truth but TBs does hit not based on HP nor hit for only this low amount of damage to only take 70% of it, they hit waay higher, thats why you have to put in most scenarios a 30% or 20% mit on top of the HoC/Holy Shelt/TBN.

I'm sorry but you're misinterpreting my math. I'm not implying tank busters hit for a fixed percentage of a tanks' health, I'm implying they deal "a lot" of damage and I convert that to a percentage for the sake of keeping numbers that are reusable across item level tiers. Because of multiplicative stacking, there's also no difference between the way Corundum interacts with, say, a 70k damage hit alone, and the way it interacts with a 100k damage hit stacked with Nebula.

Briging it from 15% 4secs to 20% 8 secs would make it super strong. you already get 100% of benefit from it Catharsis proccing or not, because you'll get that heal regardless if the times run out.

This isn't what I'm saying either. My suggestion is 20% for 8 seconds, instead of 30%[27.75%] for the first 4 seconds and 15% for the remaining 4 seconds. My suggestion would be a nerf for big single hits and a small nerf for consistent damage. Currently Corundum averages to 22.5%[21.375%] mitigation across its duration. If you stack a flat 20% with the Continuation buff I suggested for big hits the new mitigation would be 28%, it ends up being a small buff if HoC stacks with itself multiplicatively and a small nerf if it self stacks additively. Their combination would also be a moderate buff to average mitigation. Catharsis has no benefit if it goes off while you're at or near full HP, to say regardless is just incorrect.

I don't think you or the previous replier understand that my suggestions work together to offload a little bit of defensive power from Corundum - which will still be very powerful compared to Intervention, TBN, and Oblation - and place it into the weaving that people are already doing that makes defensive options hard to pop in the first place. If you agree that's a problem GNB has then you're admitting Continuation is high priority, so why not add mitigation there? In other words, if people feel the continuation playstyle works against the goals of tanking, why not make it reward you with a tanky buff to balance the scale?

[Insertusernamehere]

Gunbreaker (GNB):
> Increase Continuation range to match SAM's Iaijutsu.

> Fated Circle and Double Down grant Ready to Blast. Lean in to Hypervelocity!

> Remove the 4s bonus 15%+ from Corundum, change it to a flat 20% for 8s.

> Add a 10% damage reduction buff for 2.5 seconds to the Enhanced Continuation

Increase Continuation range to match SAM's Iaijutsu.

This really helps. GNB's big problem repositioning boss, very hard in Continuation.

Fated Circle and Double Down grant Ready to Blast. Lean in to Hypervelocity!

This is not good idea. GNB already having trouble with forced double weaves during tank buster.. or raid wide mitigation while doing Continuation. We don't need to add another burden to Continuation window.

Hypervelocity after Fated Cricle also makes no good idea because you are doing AOE rotation and single target skill will reduce overall dps you will most likely ignore it and continue with AOE rotation.

Remove the 4s bonus 15%+ from Corundum, change it to a flat 20% for 8s.

This is also bad idea.. Corundum only reliable mitigation skill you can use in Continuation with single weave or you might be forced to use double mitigation skill if your gear not sufficient for tank buster. Time it correctly and it works no need to change it.

Add a 10% damage reduction buff for 2.5 seconds to the Enhanced Continuation trait.

I think it is unreliable..