Keep overpower cone shaped!

[dspguy]

I didn't like the change when it first came out. The cone naturally helped "funnel" the enemies into a tight little spot so all the AOEs volleyed at the trash would hit every last one. Now I sort of have to do this dance on the wall-to-wall pulls where I run to the wall, spam AOE until the mobs have gathered close, then run back through them and then they wind up being pretty tight - then stand in the center and spam.

I've learned to live with it. It is what it is.

[Dogempire]

I didn't like the change when it first came out. The cone naturally helped "funnel" the enemies into a tight little spot so all the AOEs volleyed at the trash would hit every last one. Now I sort of have to do this dance on the wall-to-wall pulls where I run to the wall, spam AOE until the mobs have gathered close, then run back through them and then they wind up being pretty tight - then stand in the center and spam.

I've learned to live with it. It is what it is.

It definitely threw me off whenever it first came out, it was a bit unconventional but I liked how the cone had more reach in exchange for not being 360, meaning you could hit every mob if you simply positioned smartly and kept track of how the mobs are going to move.

I think it's easier for new players now, but ultimately I kind of miss the little dance of moving into the group and out for the AoE combo

[sergel02]

I always hated the cones so I’m happier with the change. Wouldn’t say no to a bit more variety like DRK has though.

[Shurrikhan]

Overpower lost almost 1/3 of its range...

It went from 8m to 5m. It was shortened by 37.5% / was 60% longer than it is now.

Circular AoEs are... decent-ish(?) for DPS, since they have no need to maneuver mobs -- though inferior even then, especially if one needs to dodge out of AoEs while maintaining uptime on all enemies.

For tanks, though, they're pretty shit altogether; that lost range means that the moment mobs end up on the far side of others with large collision circles, or cast anything, etc., you're unlikely to hit all while repositioning.

...Not to mention having to wait until they're in range to hit you for you to hit them, or that maximizing its effective target count means reducing the effective target count of casters' (and certain physical ranged skills') target-centered circular AoEs....

[Mikey_R]

I always hated the cones so I’m happier with the change. Wouldn’t say no to a bit more variety like DRK has though.

...You do realise you contradicted yourself right? You want more AoE variety, but that is exactly what Overpower was, a different shape AoE, unique for the tanks infact, like the line AoE is unique to DRK.

[marelooke]

More healing, more streamlining, more cookie-cutter dungeon bosses. Still no cone.

*sigh*

I mean, needing bots due to a lack of tanks during roulettes becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as they're really trying to sap every little bit of enjoyment out of running dungeons, especially older ones.

[Marxam]

It went from 8m to 5m. It was shortened by 37.5% / was 60% longer than it is now.

Circular AoEs are... decent-ish(?) for DPS, since they have no need to maneuver mobs -- though inferior even then, especially if one needs to dodge out of AoEs while maintaining uptime on all enemies.

For tanks, though, they're pretty shit altogether; that lost range means that the moment mobs end up on the far side of others with large collision circles, or cast anything, etc., you're unlikely to hit all while repositioning.

...Not to mention having to wait until they're in range to hit you for you to hit them, or that maximizing its effective target count means reducing the effective target count of casters' (and certain physical ranged skills') target-centered circular AoEs....

You also forget WAR has 4 other circle aoes i.e. Primal Rend, Steel/Chaotic Cyclone, Decimate and Orogeny. Including the aoe combo that's a total of 6 whereas DRK has one of each type, line, ranged aoe, ground and circle. It wouldn't kill them to add some variety to the aoe combo.

[Shurrikhan]

You also forget WAR has 4 other circle aoes i.e. Primal Rend, Steel/Chaotic Cyclone, Decimate and Orogeny. Including the aoe combo that's a total of 6 whereas DRK has one of each type, line, ranged aoe, ground and circle. It wouldn't kill them to add some variety to the aoe combo.

I'm pretty sure they referenced (lack of) variety as the purpose for the change -- that they think it'd be more intuitive for Warrior players for there to be only one AoE shape.

If so, that does seem to say something about their perception of the average Warrior.

[marelooke]

I'm pretty sure they referenced (lack of) variety as the purpose for the change -- that they think it'd be more intuitive for Warrior players for there to be only one AoE shape.

If so, that does seem to say something about their perception of the average Warrior.

To me it seems SE is still under the mistaken assumption that "tanxiety" (and its cousin "healxiety", for that matter) is something caused by the (perceived) complexity of the jobs. One would think they'd have figured out by now (MMOs and the "holy trinity" have been around for a while now...) that this is a purely psychological barrier to the role, not to the individual jobs, due to the perceived "additional responsibility" of the role and no amount of changes, barring outright removing the role, will "fix" tanxiety.

The vast majority of the people that are "tanxious" will still be tanxious if tanking consisted of a single button that said "Unga bunga!", while on the other end of the spectrum there would also be less tanks since they're sucking every little bit of enjoyment out of tanking dungeons with both the direction of dungeon design (those last few dungeons didn't exactly have exciting trash pulls...), and job design (I mean, every tank is the same as far as AoE goes...).

Then again, we're just guessing, since they never bothered actually explaining why they butchered WAR AoE, which makes things even more frustrating.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

snip

I disagree with the notion that people would always be anxious regardless of the complexity of tanks from my own experiences with friends. Tanxiety takes many forms; most of Square's changes are to tackle the one that can be directly changed.

As you said, there is the barrier to even get into the role for most people, but there's a second barrier right afterward - the visibility of when you screw up compared to other roles which equally drives away people that break through the first barrier. Its easy to know when you, as a tank lost aggro and the healer/dps got their faces munched on. It's easy to discern when a tank is undermitigating, etc. Thus, a tank player messing up is easier for the party to call out, and as such, easier for the tank to feel pressure and leave the role after trying to get into it because of anxiety. Contrast a dps player where outside of watching their animations/spell casts like a hawk or using forbidden tools, the only time another can call you out is if you get hit by something/die.

Most of Square's changes are designed to tackle this. When Stormblood had all the stance dancing nuances, it was much more common to find tanks messing up aggro, as plenty didn't understand the nuances between balancing aggro generation with tank stance & doing dps with dps stance. So they made it so losing aggro was infinitely harder in SHB and beyond.

When tanks were undermitigating when using dps stance, it was much easier for them to die or get called out on. So Square made it so the 20% damage mit became baked in to the jobs through a trait so the difference between proper mitigation and less than proper was smaller.

And the thing is? It works. I had no less than five different friends who wouldn't touch tanking with a hundred foot pole pre-SHB, most of them giving reasons akin to 'I want it to be relaxing/don't want to mess up and get called out'. Once tank mastery & the aggro change came into play, many of them were happy to play tanks and got a lot of confidence because the barrier of messing up was dramatically lowered, leaving them immensely more comfortable to try the role. And based on their continued trend of standardizing and making tanks easier to use with kit/ability changes, I have zero doubts their literal exabytes of statistics paint the same story of increasing tank adoption rates the easier they become to use.

It's most likely a similar logic followed on why they changed Overpower - When literally every other tank AOE attack on their basic combo chains was a circle, keeping Overpower a cone was an odd choice, from a design perspective. "But DRK has line aoes!" you might say, but the thing is, as bad play as it is, those aoes are optional to the basic core tank gameplay that is entry level. It's pretty clear Square wants to keep the core functions of each tank job standardized across the board to incentivize swapping/creating a much more welcoming atmosphere / ease of us. One standardized AOE combo, one standardized 1-2-3 combo, rampart, one standardized 30%, one standardized short CD, one "can't die" button, etc. When you jump from one job in the role to the other, every core base feature plays the exact same in function, the only thing you learn is optional higher gameplay kit nuances.