Proposal for inner release change

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Honestly the real issue with Warrior (and by extension any job with skills that have a 100% crit / direct hit chance) is that they don't interact with jobs that grant buffs, which boost Critical Hit rate or Direct Hit rate. Which is also the reason why Warriors apart from their general tankiness are much less favoured than the other three tanks when it comes to actually building synergistic team comps. Warrior + Samurai in a comp with SCH DRG BRD will turn a lot of eyes due to the anti-synergy between the kits.

The solution to the problem is to think outside of the box - let any overcap of a stat essentially just increase damage.

Bonus Crit rate on action with 100% crit rate? Bonus damage.
Bonus DH rate on action with 100% DH rate? Bonus damage.
Overcap Skillspeed / Spellspeed on actions with 1.5s recast time (that's cap for GCD actions)? Bonus damage.

Would solve every and all issues, delete anti-synergies due to well-meant consistency changes and would also not make speed stats on jobs with capped out GCD recast (i.e. Heatblast from MCH or Enshroud weaponskills from RPR) into dead stats.

While at it, merge skillspeed / spellspeed already so PLD, DRK, RPR and RDM can stop cringing at their kits having Weaponskills and Spells.

[Colt47]

Ugh, yeah the warrior is the one tank where you have to meld completely different from other tanks to optimize it and it gains little from direct hit boosts due to having so many periods where it just crits all the time. If they did an overcap damage bonus it would probably make the job even harder to balance than it is since the 100% on crit and DH is a cap to prevent those stats from going over a baseline. Would be funny though if they tried out inner release granting a ton of Tenacity just to rattle the chains on that ghost of a statistic.

[Launched]

No thanks. 4.0/4.1 WAR wasn't fun, and guaranteed direct crits are a nice alternative to a low % damage increase. WAR doesn't need changed because a few jobs have crit/direct hit raid buffs, fix those buffs instead.

[Colt47]

No thanks. 4.0/4.1 WAR wasn't fun, and guaranteed direct crits are a nice alternative to a low % damage increase. WAR doesn't need changed because a few jobs have crit/direct hit raid buffs, fix those buffs instead.

I'm just imagining what it would look like if they kept the inner release the same, but instead of making it 100% crit they did something like +25% damage. I just can't see it working given how the crit buff is sort of easily capped and measured vs putting in strait damage boosts. If they just changed the cleave to some special move that had insane potency when inner release is hit that could work, but then having a crit on a 600 potency attack is probably greater than getting auto crits on the current fell cleave.

[Absurdity]

I'm just imagining what it would look like if they kept the inner release the same, but instead of making it 100% crit they did something like +25% damage. I just can't see it working given how the crit buff is sort of easily capped and measured vs putting in strait damage boosts. If they just changed the cleave to some special move that had insane potency when inner release is hit that could work, but then having a crit on a 600 potency attack is probably greater than getting auto crits on the current fell cleave.

Well, how does it work for GnB? No Mercy gives you a 20% damage buff for 20 seconds, there is your answer.

[Colt47]

Well, how does it work for GnB? No Mercy gives you a 20% damage buff for 20 seconds, there is your answer.

With PLD and GNB the idea is that it just boosts the damage on your main rotation, where as with DRK and WAR the damage buff comes from completely switching to a different engine. Technically, they'd have to move warrior to something more like what Dark Knight has with the Quietus, where the move just has more potency and they get to spam it. But if they did that I think it would take away the feeling of doing big damage for that one stretch, since DRK doesn't really give that feeling during Quietus spam. That's also why I don't really like the Quietus phase of DRK because it's just an aesthetically different primary rotation for a few seconds.

[fulminating]

But if they did that I think it would take away the feeling of doing big damage for that one stretch, since DRK doesn't really give that feeling during Quietus spam. That's also why I don't really like the Quietus phase of DRK because it's just an aesthetically different primary rotation for a few seconds.

How does this differ from fell cleave spam?

[Shurrikhan]

No thanks. 4.0/4.1 WAR wasn't fun, and guaranteed direct crits are a nice alternative to a low % damage increase. WAR doesn't need changed because a few jobs have crit/direct hit raid buffs, fix those buffs instead.

Could hardly disagree more. 4.1 was probably the most enjoyable state WAR had ever been in. All it needed was a small Onslaught buff to maintain its potency-per-gauge efficiency despite FC's later buffs (direct and indirect), perhaps with a second charge by now, and for Inner Release to feel like it needed less wind-up, though if we'd had the second charge of Infuriate back then, that wouldn't much have been an issue, either. Revise the stance interplay slightly and add to that a more thematic take on two expansion's gains and you've got yourself a hell of a tank -- competent, creative, and decently complex.

[Absurdity]

The problem with Delirium is that it doesn't have increased potency, Bloodspiller is only 500 potency and Delirium doesn't buff it in any way, so of course it feels weak. Dark Knight in general doesn't have any really high potency attacks, it just has a ridiculous amount of dps oGCDs to make up for it.

What people seem to conveniently forget is that reworking warrior to get away from guaranteed direct crits isn't just a case of removing the buff and calling it a day.
The potency on Fellcleave has steadily been going down compared to other abilities to account for the guaranteed direct crits, of course it would feel lackluster if you just removed those without increasing Fellcleave's, Inner Chaos' (which honestly could just be removed if Fellcleave didn't hit like a wet noodle) and Primal Rend's potency.

You just need to look back at HW warrior. Old Berserk was a 50% attack power increase, which is basically just the same as a % damage buff, but Fellcleave was one of the highest potency abilities back then so that tripple cleave under Berserk hit like a truck, especially when crit rng blessed you.

Best current example is GnB's Double Down. Whether or not it's actually a good ability is questionable, but there's no denying that it has impact. And when you get blessed by the rng gods once in a while it doesn't just hit like a truck, it hits like a freight train, at almost double the damage of Primal Rend.

[Amenara]

The problem with Delirium is that it doesn't have increased potency, Bloodspiller is only 500 potency and Delirium doesn't buff it in any way, so of course it feels weak. Dark Knight in general doesn't have any really high potency attacks, it just has a ridiculous amount of dps oGCDs to make up for it.

What people seem to conveniently forget is that reworking warrior to get away from guaranteed direct crits isn't just a case of removing the buff and calling it a day.
The potency on Fellcleave has steadily been going down compared to other abilities to account for the guaranteed direct crits, of course it would feel lackluster if you just removed those without increasing Fellcleave's, Inner Chaos' (which honestly could just be removed if Fellcleave didn't hit like a wet noodle) and Primal Rend's potency.

You just need to look back at HW warrior. Old Berserk was a 50% attack power increase, which is basically just the same as a % damage buff, but Fellcleave was one of the highest potency abilities back then so that tripple cleave under Berserk hit like a truck, especially when crit rng blessed you.

Best current example is GnB's Double Down. Whether or not it's actually a good ability is questionable, but there's no denying that it has impact. And when you get blessed by the rng gods once in a while it doesn't just hit like a truck, it hits like a freight train, at almost double the damage of Primal Rend.

I agree, there would probably have to be a fel cleave potency change if they did end up removing DH/Crits from IR, depending on if they add an attack boost to IR instead. It's all knobs that can be tweaked to put warrior exactly where the Devs want them in terms of DPS. I would rather have higher baseline Fel Cleaves with those big hits thrown in when you are lucky enough to get a DH/Crit, be able to synergize with most of the buffs instead of barely synergizing with any of them (especially with the design mentality shifting to every job has their buff phase every 2 minutes), and be able to gear all my tanks the same instead of having to go for a Det build for warrior and have subpar secondaries for the other three tanks due to no DH.