Let's TheoryRaid! #1(?) Jormungand vs Xeno'jiiva

So I'm obviously in a mood (as of this writing) and pretty tired of having entirely theoretical arguments. The other post at the moment is great for macro-concepts, but I'm going down to one. Reference videos!

Jormungand.



No need to watch the video, no need to even know what exactly I'm talking about. Just starting yet another 'data collection/argument' about expectations of raiding, doubling down on the prior question about MMO PvE experiences.

Xeno'jiiva



Without experience with these games I doubt watching the videos will make sense, they're here for quick-reference on timestamps.

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

For players who expect to favor Action Combat, both of these dragons have positional mechanics that would probably force you to put yourself at considerable risk of missing or taking damage, one or the other. If you had an ability that was too slow to guarantee a safe hit without having to outright guess the direction it would move, would you accept switching to Tab Mode in Ashes to ensure safety/accuracy?

This is just about me updating my models of the mindsets behind people's stances in discussions, but I don't mind if this thread derails too. I'll even read Mag's stuff, if I must.

Why am I doing this now? OTHER than just being in 'a mood', it's because I prefer to have these sorts of conversations before Intrepid shows off new stuff, cause understanding people while they're responding to New Intrepid Information and everyone's opinions are stronger is frustrating.

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

I expect that to be expected of me. That's the whole point of hybrid combat. If I can disregard action completely during top lvl content (both pve and pvp) - that ain't a fucking hybrid.

But again, this is purely in context of top lvl content. Anything else is free to sway to whichever side and to whatever degree.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

For players who expect to favor Tab Target, both of these dragons fly. If you had an ability that you needed to hit the head with, would you expect the situation to be 'I can't do that while it is airborne without switching to Action Mode' in Ashes?

Would you be okay with that?

I expect that to be expected of me. That's the whole point of hybrid combat. If I can disregard action completely during top lvl content (both pve and pvp) - that ain't a fucking hybrid.

But again, this is purely in context of top lvl content. Anything else is free to sway to whichever side and to whatever degree.

Thank you, I hope that by using these two very specific examples I can avoid getting into any unnecessary ruts with anyone.

Basically, if no one actually responds 'No, I don't want to have to aim even in this situation', then it will imply to me that no matter what other disagreements occur in other threads, most of it is probably just a lack of targeted references.

We have not received permission from PenguinPaladin to share the quoted post.

(if relevant, I'd prefer you not bother trying not to update your posts if I've in any way influenced you to shift that, I can probably much more easily update 'my side' expectations).

I see that you have the assumption that Tab Target skills have limited range, so I'll 'add that to my list'. This would also be my expectation, but some recent discussions have brought me to conclude that there are a few people who don't seem to expect that 'actually having to interact with the range' is particularly important to battles for Tab Target skills.

Database query failed while verifying quote authorship.

"You know, I'm something of a dragon myself..."

Anyway, I will take all responses seriously, I should clarify. This is not meant to imply that I think you are trolling (I do disagree with your perspective, so there's some bias there), just verifying that either this is your very real opinion, or at least, that if you are trolling, you are ready to double down.

Please forgive my bias.

We have not received permission from Ugoogee to share the quoted post.

From your side then...

Jormungand is surrounded by creatures that aggro to spellcasting. In this case let's assume Ability use would also trigger them to come for you. For half of them, the method of attack is 'casting spells', sometimes AoE, sometimes very powerful single target, sometimes debilitating status effects.

IF you were required to face Jormungand in Action Mode (because you chose Action Skills) to maximize DPS, and one of these was to aggro you when you used an ability, from behind, would you consider this to be a natural part of the encounter, or would you switch to using more Tab-Target abilities to prevent it?

We have not received permission from Ugoogee to share the quoted post.

The category of people I still don't know the reaction time of >.>

We have not received permission from CROW3 to share the quoted post.

As a followup question then, what if anything would you expect to cause you to switch back out of Tab Target mode at that point?

Intrepid has implied that harder CC will generally be skillshot related, so that's an obvious point.

But what else makes you switch, again, assuming one of the dragons above and their size. And if you don't mind, if there is anything you expect to gain as a benefit from switching back to Action Combat mode other than 'just liking it', what is it?

(It's additionally helpful if you also address the same point I made to Ugoogee in the same flow, being in Tab Target would make adds easier to detect).

Database query failed while verifying quote authorship.

My doubt had nothing to do with your dragon-affiliation and everything to do with basically going "Even Action skills should not be able to harm a flying Dragon".

I considered it a somewhat unique perspective on it and I generally find some of your off-the-cuff posts to be funny so I wasn't entirely sure. Data noted.

We have not received permission from Shoelid to share the quoted post.

Where does this fit on that scale for you, then?



Based on what you've said I would lean toward assuming that you think 'this encounter should not force me to hit the head', but I don't like assuming, so I ask.

FYI when Xeno'jiiva is airborne, I find it to be only slightly less erratic than the Ashes Dragon shown there, but I'm not 'saying that the dragon shown there is similar to high end raid content' either. (you can't see it because the player in the Xeno video is explicitly 'sustained DPS' and it wouldn't be their job to hit the head).

We have not received permission from Noaani to share the quoted post.

Any thought on 'Hybrid Design where only some tanks actually need to positionally dodge'?

Such as a design that results from/includes having defensive skills available to Tanks powerful enough to disincentivize actually moving out of the attacks (for whatever reason) but Action based offensive skills that benefit from 'not having to dodge'.

Azherae wrote: »

Such as a design that results from/includes having defensive skills available to Tanks powerful enough to disincentivize actually moving out of the attacks (for whatever reason) but Action based offensive skills that benefit from 'not having to dodge'.

I'd assume a fair bit of cleric augments would lead to tanks standing around and taking dmg in order to trigger healing.

Bard augments could potentially provide buffs in the same way, so maybe that too. L2's tanks had an ultra buff where they'd need to do or take dmg to build up a charge and then use that charge to trigger the buff. I could see smth similar through augments.

Since some of my questions may continue in this direction for the time being, a brief primer on what I understand about Tanking from experience and observation of others, for Monster Hunter (basically explaining what is happening with Xeno'jiiva).

Please note that this is theoretical, but is functional enough in practice that I can consistently use it to tank in that game, (as much as it is overall possible to do so, one can judge from the battle video whether or not it seems like tanking is happening).

Attacks seem to have either 3 or 5 tiers of 'hate gained', and hate is reduced when the monster attacks in the direction of the player, not when the monster successfully damages that player.

So the Switch Blade user (the one you see the perspective of in the video) is constantly riding the 'line' by actually holding back on DPS, resulting in some of the more annoying/dangerous attacks being used less often. The tank in the video is doing such a relatively good job (again, from my experience) that you barely see them, you just know 'the monster is attacking someone else most of the time'.

There are certain states and timings where the monster does not build any hate value (normally when staggered).

The goal of a tank in Monster Hunter World is to keep striking as often as possible, and to quickly reposition toward the monster if it goes for someone else and again, keep striking. The key is to attack more often. The "Shield Tank" therefore literally has a shield (and can attack while it is up, just poking the enemy). The Evasion tank vaults and 'flies' around while striking many times very consistently due to high mobility and has two additional ways to debuff or stagger the monster more often, which can, with experience, be used when they are about to 'lose hate'.

FFXI tanking works as one would expect from MMOs (I hope, maybe my lack of experience will show here). Taunt, high hate-generation abilities, mitigation, minor CC options, good defenses. Jormungand does have a hate reset which is used randomly when it has built enough gauge for it.

I would expect that for Ashes, some sort of stamina gauge for blocking may be needed, and mitigation would need to be combined with blocking to reach 'I don't even have to dodge right now' levels of self-protection.

In the case where stamina is a thing, and dodging 'must happen eventually' (from the Mana efficiency standpoint moreso than the threat-to-life standpoint), is your response different?

Azherae wrote: »

I would expect that for Ashes, some sort of stamina gauge for blocking may be needed, and mitigation would need to be combined with blocking to reach 'I don't even have to dodge right now' levels of self-protection.

In the case where stamina is a thing, and dodging 'must happen eventually' (from the Mana efficiency standpoint moreso than the threat-to-life standpoint), is your response different?

Considering sprinting in Ashes consumes mana (at least rn), I'd assume active blocks/dodges would consume mana too. So the whole process would be a dance around mana control and usages reduction, at which point it would just come down to looking at what's more beneficial - a dodge or a block.

If that is not the case, I'd assume it'll come down to proper timings of ability usage (mainly dmg mitigation ones) and proper blocking that will consume stamina. And I'm assuming that purely on the basis of it being easier than a proper iframe dodge (unless active blocking can be "exploited" by "iframing" hits).

Outside of those assumptions, I'd really have to see augment potentials to even start imagining how the tank gameplay will go down. And I'm very interested in that cause that's what I'm gonna be doing in the game

We have not received permission from PenguinPaladin to share the quoted post.

Well in the case of the two raids shown, the situation doesn't quite apply to either, but we could imagine a theoretical one where the concepts are combined into one dragon (or just overall thought about in this way).

This is also similar to how BDO already works (note that for those of you who think BDO PvE content sucks, I agree, but also believe it does not HAVE to suck, they just don't have an audience who cares/can do better content)

Dragon flies, the Tank blocks and tries to use threat generation abilities between attacks before quickly returning to blocking. Mistiming this or misjudging the better time to take a hit results in problems. Pretty simple I think. I'd think that, at that point, it would work similar to Action Dodge assuming that took mana or stamina.

"The Healer and I have an understanding/rhythm of when I am going to take hits, and it's up to me to time that correctly."

I don't think a stamina gauge is required for this absolutely (I'd prefer one) though, since the Tank 'needs to keep using threat generation abilities' in the 'Blocking Tank' case, and 'Will have their Action Dodge on Cooldown or burn too much Mana dodging too much' in the Action Evade tank case.

This isn't as true if the Dragon has AoE, particularly if the block prevents a lot of damage and the AoE reduces the hate values of everyone else it hits, which is my usual experience (for example Xeno'jiiva normally sorta-resets target after using AoE and the thing that makes one a 'Tank' is how fast you can get back into position to hit it before anyone else does).