Shield Smite & Chain Strategem: Remove or Severely Cut

[Atreus]

Just before 7.4 dropped, a thread on /r/ffxivdiscussion was posted going over the current state of PvP balance and feedback engagement, along with a video within from Tal'ke Rainare.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...f_balance_and/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67lXxC8cm4

A major focus of the discussion was around guard crack (the effect of Shield Smite and Chain Strategem reducing the effectiveness of Guard by 50%) and how it's pretty universally agreed to be extremely detrimental to the gamestate. Please review the thread and video if you would like more insight.


Now, 7.4 dropped with a very minor change to this, citing "Additionally, we found that Chain Stratagem was too effective against Guard, so we have made adjustments to ensure that targets under the effect of Guard cannot accrue status ailments that increase damage taken."

While this is an appreciated step, this is way too minor of a solution that has done absolutely nothing to change the gamestate.

The mechanic of cracking guard needs outright removal or the impact needs to be severely cut. Guard is a tool for dealing with burst damage, takes awareness and timing to use, and becomes invalidated through the instant-use nature of Chain Strategem (again I recommend checking the reddit thread and video for a breakdown of this interaction).



***If we insist on keeping the mechanic, then the cut to Guard efficiency needs to lessened significantly (20%-30% may suffice as a starting point the players can test out). This will still allow players to punish late Guards while allowing well-timed Guards to still feel rewarding. Otherwise, remove it.***



If you remove the mechanic, then what about PLD and SCH's job identity?

Both of these jobs had identities that existed in Endwalker, before the mechanic was introduced with these jobs chosen as the "pilot jobs". You have the option of restoring those identities.


This design philosophy of approaching changes reeeaaalllllllly slowly and incrementally is not sufficient. If this isn't dealt with within the 7.4 patches, then I fear NA CCRC is going to be disappointing.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I mean yeah I'm fully on board with it.

Shield Smite & Chain Stratagem wouldn't even need the guard crack, just their +10% vulnerability is GENERALLY great to have.

Guard crack & Guard pierce has honestly become a bit too commonplace, with alternative mitigation options not exactly being evenly distributed or viable enough.

[Valence]

Guard cracks need to go. We've already guard piercing abilities to add pressure to Guarded targets and it's worked fine so far.

[Mercury_Grey]

Shield smite instead of cracking guard shoudl apply a debuff on their next guard "reduce guard effectiveness by 15%" instead of jsut yeah yoru guard is now weak at 30%