Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
...
Inner Beast is a really good example.

IB post-2.1 was one of my favorite actions in the game. It was an offensive tool, defensive tool, required resource management and good timing. Progging T9 as a WAR 'MT' was a lot of fun. IB was killed off by the addition of FC in HW. The end result was that players felt like IB didn't really 'count' as mitigation, yet it existed and was a very powerful prog tool. The end result is that its defensive properties were eventually moved over into its current form with RI/BW to make it standardized like everything else.

I think that Raises are fundamentally different because of how powerful they are. I haven't seen anyone complain about having access to Raise. And a lot of this comes down to player perceptions of usefulness. Situational and even purely fluff actions (like pacifying animals as a Warcraft Druid or being able to fly) can be really fun. The problem is that players in this game are very conscious of their 'hotbar budget', and any action that doesn't feel jam packed with usefulness becomes a source of frustration.

GNB has always been fun from an offensive standpoint. I think that most of the gameplay issues stem from longstanding problems around mob movement and responsiveness in this game compared to other MMOs. Camo is a really cool idea thematically (see: Thancred vs. Ran'jit), but its execution is pretty underwhelming. If I wanted to do an 'Evasion-themed' defensive ability, I'd go for something similar to FF6's Image status effect (complete with blinking image clones). Mitigate a set %DR (?physical damage), except that each hit mitigated this way has a chance to remove the buff. Doesn't even need a duration timer, really. Or if you want something more consistent, give a set number of stacks. Heart of Light feels fairly uninspired. Most of your abilities deploy portable %DR barriers on yourself and party members, and now you're suddenly magic resist only?

I've said this before, but more movement abilities are always welcome on any tank or melee job. Just set up an extraction point on the arena in advance and get airlifted back to safety in the last moment. Speaking of which, I never understood why they went with a generic bodycheck for WAR's gap closer. Holmgang essentially fires a grappling hook into your opponent. Few things would be more entertaining than swinging across an arena to your target.