Tank Buster and Dark Knight Rework

[Tunda]

Hello FFXIV community,

I have been enjoying dawntrail and thankfully not as a tank, tank issues are clear:

• Identity
• Simplicity
• Homogenization

I have been thinking of rework of an existing mechanic which is Tank Buster which i see it as an opportunity for tanks to dash crazy defense and damage.

that's why I split tank busters into 3 types:

• Normal Tank Buster (which already exist)
• Physical Tank Buster (New)
• Magical Tank Buster (New)

And tanks have 3 mitigations to counter each one of them if tank choose wrong mitigation it will do full dmg and receive damage taken increase.

Imagine it like rock paper scissors game if correct it will reward tank else it will do negative, additionally invulnerability will replaced with a new one.

The problem in current tank design is that tanks are having the same passive which is tank mastery and I believe that is boring and holding back great design choices.

that's why I have been thinking deeply on rework ideas that if may square enix see them and give them a chance.

I will start with dark knight:
I took an inspiration from dark knight story which is a ishgardian warrior that uses a dark shield to protect him self and it it as an offensive option if needed with a cost of their HP.

Passive and Playstyle:

Main idea:

Dark knight is a knight that uses great sword for heavy hitting attack while darkness trades its hp with darkness shield that can be converted to damage and darkness blessing will heal him if done correctly.

Passive:

Each time dark knight got hit by enemy it will give 30% of damage received as darkness shield (which is unique shield that will not be go beyond max hp and damage received will prioritize darkness shield), any shield or heal received from healer will be converted to darkness shield.
Basically, no shields or heals are allowed to dark knight other than darkness shields and frey's heal.

Explanation:

Main combo and abilities:

Main Combo:

Single target: Hard Slash > Syphon Strike > Souleater
Multi target: Unleash > Stalwart Soul

will have different effect:
instead of heal for 400 potency it will be:
320 (70%) potency darkness shield and 80 (30%) potency heal (if hp is 100% it will sacrifice dark knight hp portion of hp to darkness shield) and gain mana.

[Tunda]

Skills:

Edge of Shadow: OGCD

deal damage and consume 10% of hp and 3000 of mana
gain 10% darkness shield

Shadowbringer: OGCD

deal more damage and consume 25% of hp and 5000 of mana
gain 25% darkness shield.

Carve and Spit: OGCD
same at what we use now.


Eventide: GCD

Deal heavy attack that consume all darkness shield and potency is based on missing health.

explanation:


Disesteem:

Deals Very Heavy attack with potency based on missing health can be cast if physical tank buster mitigation done correctly.

Frey’s blessing: OGCD

Frey heals dark knight equal to 20% max health.
only can be used after Eventide.

Delirium and Blood spiller will be the same

Living Shadow:

new affect that will heal dark knight after each hit by the shadow.

AOE skills:
Abyssal Drain will be the same

Shadowed Vigil (buff) (only if there is 3 enemies or more):
Reduces damage taken by 40%.
Duration: 20s

Tank mitigation:

The Blackest Night: (Normal mitigation)

cost 3000 mana
If cast on self, gain 30% darkness shield of maximum health and 20% defense increase, grant affect The Blackest Night Unleashed.
If cast to target party member it will cost 30% of self hp and give party member normal shield it will be 30% of their HP.

Living Dead (physical mitigation):

Convert HP to 1% and darkness shield to 99% prevent dark knight to be healed.
If done successfully it will empower the next Eventide with follow-up attack Disesteem.
Else: it gives debuff damage taken increase by 10% and full damage received

Dark Missionary (Magical mitigation):

If done correctly it will give all party increase shield by 15% of their HP until they take next hit
Else: it gives debuff damage taken increase by 10% and full damage received

please let me know your opinion.

[The_User]

Make tank consume hp for landing attack would turn out horribly. The only time it work was when it worked like war's stance in heavensward.

[Tunda]

Make tank consume hp for landing attack would turn out horribly. The only time it work was when it worked like war's stance in heavensward.

Yes true, the idea of making the dark knight consume hp to make it more into high risk/ high reward.
I counter the idea that tank consume health by following:

1- Frey's blessing will heal large amount after Eventide.
2- We can add 20% defense after casting Eventide.

the main idea is Eventide is a hard hitting ability that will consume all dark shield instead of health like heavensward.
then you can cast healing ability that will heal with each hit using Living Shadow.

many games do this and have succeeded but it needs to test it properly and numbers can change.

[Mikey_R]

I've held my tongue long enough. The reason your topic don't tend to get much traction is because, quite frankly, your ideas are not well thought out.

in this case, using HP for damage is not good and your physical tank buster mitigation is a death sentence. However, to go over things here and from other topics in the same vein, tying damage to defensive tools just turns that defensive tool into something offensive. You won't use it for defence at all. In the case of Warrior's Vengeance, it is weak enough that it effectively has no effect on your damage, it is literally flavour and as for TBN, that is using an offensive resource where, as long as the barrier breaks, you end up DPS neutral at worst.

As for your ideas on the different tank busters, why? What purpose does this serve other than button bloat? You mentioned in another topic that it would be random whether the boss does one of the 3 types. You cannot plan anything around that, especially with the party mitigations you want to put on the magical busters and damage you want to put on the physical. The mitigation has no guarantee of being used and, especially if it is random, is not something you can rely on. As for the physical one, again, randomness in how damage is dealt, does it happen to line up with burst phases? What if I get tons of them one run and none the next? You are just asking for a tank's DPS to fluctuate wildly from run to run.

As for what you have here, as long as you survive the hit, you have effectively given DRK a 30% damage mitigation on everything. That is stupidly strong for anything. Plus, you negate any sort of shielding that takes you over max HP. The whole point of shield to to give you more effective HP, by not allowing them to go over 100%, you make healing as a Scholar or Sage that much harder for no reason. Even the shield granted by WHM and AST would be almost useless.

As for Flood/Shadowbringer. What does it effective achieve by converting HP into Darkshield? You have the same HP, why go though that, oh wait, it's Eventide, the thing that, if used to the max potential, will kill you. It is also worth noting that your graphic for Frey's Blessing is wrong. If you start at 30% HP and it heals 20%, you will be at 50%, not 65%.

And now Shadowed Vigil, Reduce damage taken by 40%, but only with 3+ enemies? So it's either useless in boss fights or it is weaker (assuming old 30%). Either way, what is the point in that?

Again, your ideas are not thought out in the context of the game. I also see you mention that this system has been used in other games. Are they MMOs and does the combat play out like FFXIV. If either of those answers is no, then you cannot just take it from one game and hope it works here. Different systems and different game genres mean different mechanics and things to think about.

[Tunda]

As for what you have here, as long as you survive the hit, you have effectively given DRK a 30% damage mitigation on everything. That is stupidly strong for anything.

As I said, numbers can be fixed weather increase or decrease,
if you think 30% defense is too high, did you read Tank Mastery passive for tanks?
it is already giving tanks 20% free defense increase and max health.

if you think current tanks are balance please play warrior then play dark knight as main tank you will feel how much broken current tanks are.

Yoshi P already mentioned that he can't add new tank because the issue of individuality, means all tanks are the same we can't add special new tank in the scene.
if you think my idea are bad then give developer something you think it is good without being a copycat of warrior.

Plus, you negate any sort of shielding that takes you over max HP. The whole point of shield to to give you more effective HP, by not allowing them to go over 100%, you make healing as a Scholar or Sage that much harder for no reason. Even the shield granted by WHM and AST would be almost useless.

if white mage cast healing ability it will heal dark knight through his shield which will be converted to hp if dark knight cast Eventide.
Shield are not useless, it will convert the shield to dark shield which dark knight can consume it to dish damage and heal him self.

As for Flood/Shadowbringer. What does it effective achieve by converting HP into Darkshield? You have the same HP, why go though that, oh wait, it's Eventide, the thing that,

the point to execute Eventide and Disesteem at it's maximum potential and heal with Frey’s blessing & Living shadow.. the higher dark shield + lowest hp = highest damage.

if used to the max potential, will kill you. It is also worth noting that your graphic for Frey's Blessing is wrong. If you start at 30% HP and it heals 20%, you will be at 50%, not 65%.

20% defense can be added after casting Eventide
it will not but it will give a sense of high reward/ high risk
you are right i miss right it it was 50%.

if you are 1%hp and 99% dark shield and boss hit you for 10% of your hp..

you will not die
hp will be 1% and dark shield is 82% = 83%
so 17% is the missing health

And now Shadowed Vigil, Reduce damage taken by 40%, but only with 3+ enemies? So it's either useless in boss fights or it is weaker (assuming old 30%). Either way, what is the point in that?

to use it only on dungeons or against multiple enemies cannot use it against boss

[Tunda]

Again, your ideas are not thought out in the context of the game. I also see you mention that this system has been used in other games. Are they MMOs and does the combat play out like FFXIV. If either of those answers is no, then you cannot just take it from one game and hope it works here. Different systems and different game genres mean different mechanics and things to think about.

why do FFXIV want to be a copy of another MMORPG? that's pointless, do FFXIV have to copy things from another MMOs? no thanks.
didn't say something that can't be done programmatically.

[Mikey_R]

As I said, numbers can be fixed weather increase or decrease,
if you think 30% defense is too high, did you read Tank Mastery passive for tanks?
it is already giving tanks 20% free defense increase and max health.

You can ignore tank mastery, we are comparing tanks to tanks so it changes nothing. 30% mitigation on everything is too strong for what is effectively passive mitigation.

if you think current tanks are balance please play warrior then play dark knight as main tank you will feel how much broken current tanks are.

Never said they were, the main issue is Warrior has too much healing, reduce that (or bring up the other tanks to Warrior's level and change incoming damage accordingly) and it will be balanced.

Yoshi P already mentioned that he can't add new tank because the issue of individuality, means all tanks are the same we can't add special new tank in the scene.
if you think my idea are bad then give developer something you think it is good without being a copycat of warrior.

The thing is, your ideas shoehorn each tank into using a specific cooldown for a specific attack. You get rid on any individuality in terms of mitigation cooldowns as all tanks will do the same thing, with the only thing being what happens after. That isn't individuality, that is homogenisation, which is something everyone complains about.

if white mage cast healing ability it will heal dark knight through his shield which will be converted to hp if dark knight cast Eventide.
Shield are not useless, it will convert the shield to dark shield which dark knight can consume it to dish damage and heal him self.

i see you missed the word 'shield' when I mentioned WHM and AST. Shields cannot give you more than 100% effective HP, which makes them worse on DRK than any other tank. DRK is at full, use a shield for 20% HP, you now have 80% HP and a 20% shield, any other tank, 100% HP and a 20% shield. You have made them less tanky (remembering, you have to survive the hit in order for your 30% extra shield from damage to work). Having a tank that doesn't work with half of the healers is bad design.

the point to execute Eventide and Disesteem at it's maximum potential and heal with Frey’s blessing & Living shadow.. the higher dark shield + lowest hp = highest damage.

Eventide consumes your darkshield, leaving you at 1% HP. You will die to an auto attack, which bosses very much like to do after a tank buster. Frey's Blessing isn't going to save you if the boss attacks you first.

20% defense can be added after casting Eventide

Which wouldn't make a difference.

it will not but it will give a sense of high reward/ high risk

Which, in these extremes, noone will risk unless it is in a static, but wait, you are forced to use Living Dead, so you will end up at 1% HP and 99% shield. That's fine, just don't use Eventide and you have essentially completely blocked the tank buster, no healer resources required. There is such a thing as too much risk for not enough reward.

if you are 1%hp and 99% dark shield and boss hit you for 10% of your hp..

you will not die
hp will be 1% and dark shield is 82% = 83%
so 17% is the missing health[QUOTE=Tunda;6505489]

Until you use Eventide, the whole point of using Living Dead in the first place. You have no Dark Shield, so you die.

to use it only on dungeons or against multiple enemies cannot use it against boss

Why relegate a button to ONLY dungeon trash? Seems pointless and unnecessary.

why do FFXIV want to be a copy of another MMORPG? that's pointless, do FFXIV have to copy things from another MMOs? no thanks.
didn't say something that can't be done programmatically.

You're the one that stated you got this idea from another game, without knowing WHAT game that is or how the battle system operates, you cannot just pull mechanics from one game and slap it in an MMO and hope for the best. It doesn't work like that.