[Poruku]

Tactician is a very cool class, and has some fun things you can do. However, there are many issues with tactician. I wanna discuss the different aspects of the class and my take on them before jumping into conclusions and solutions.

1: Most of the formation skills are pretty bad. Assault formation doesn't even allow you to create it with yourself in it, which makes it terrible by default. But at the same time it's kinda op if you get it to work which is a bizarre dichotomy. Bunker formation is the weakest, even if it's also kinda more well rounded and easier to use. Volley formation is kind of amazing, but it's mostly used by sniper builds to just give themselves the buff outright. I wouldn't say that one is a problem.

2: The order skills are okay at best. Assault order is fairly cool, and can yield some decent results. Casting order I think is too weak for sure. It's rarely worth casting because adding raw power to spells isn't doing that much, while basic attacks can crit and multiply the damage which makes it much more spicy. Guard order is ok, kind of a weird heal but ok. Charge order is not bad, actually kinda cool. Mostly used for getting your summons to move. Of course the big issue with order skills is that you need to be main classing tactician to get On My Mark, which is generally a pretty big cost. You don't get to have a parry skill, fleur, or whatever other MC bonuses you might want. It's the same issue as Lantern Bearer where MC is kinda the only way to go. This is especially painful for destiny tact that just doesn't get MC BK. Oof.

3: The tactician spells are weird. But also, they're really good, in some cases. Only a few of them are worth anything, but they have unique utility. The common meme is that tactician spells are way better in the hands of a spellthief. There's no real class-related reason to use those spells other than "well, they're there". Cool, I get a free KD in melee, I get a wall, I get a hesitation spell. But I dunno, I think it's more of a flavor issue in my mind, due to how random it is. They're just, utility spells tossed in from each element. They make sense from a gameplay perspective to an extent, and I think it's like a reference to a final fantasy class or something, but still, there's something off in my mind.

4: Enemy Evaluation is painful. It's something that tactician always had that is basically like... "Oh, it's a tactician that uses Enemy Eval. This is gonna suck". It's 100% a pvp skill as well. It's kinda like playing an optimized rune mage. Nobody wants to play against that, and nobody wants to be that guy these days. Then there's analyze weakness that just sucks in comparison. Even when you're fighting an event boss, it's kinda like... Oh, the boss is weaker now. I dunno though, I literally have never seen someone use this skill in PvE.

Tactician is made up of those three elements. Spells, Orders, and Formations. Then there's EE which is kinda in a weird spot, and field medic which is basically the worst heal in the game, worst than using a potion by a wide margin. It makes Tactician into a bit of a clumsy support class. Healing is obviously really good, and most support characters are mainly defined by their ability to use area of effect healing. Tactician, in my mind, is meant instead to actively buff their whole team while participating in combat a bit. The issue is that it simply falls short in that regard.

The sad truth of the matter is that if you're a tactician, you have a limited amount of ways to be genuinely useful.


- Use wall to hold back mobs
- Use assault order and hope that your team actually makes use of the buff and the damage is worth close to 3 momentum (it's definitely less total damage than just casting a spell unless you play one of those crazy excel tact builds)
- Use acid rain on the enemies
- Use fire whip in 1v1
- Get off a godly titan gale
- Use that volley formation and shoot your excel sniper
- Be a cancer enemy eval build and take the 1v1 to turn 16
- ...

I think the class could really use a revisiting of its core mechanics. I haven't even talked about the issues with like, tactics rank being used kinda randomly across the class, or how some of Tactician's best skills are the XP and SWA boost.

SUGGESTIONS:

1: Make all the tactician spells give +1 tactics rank if you hit an enemy, BUT only if you have hit them with a different tactician spell before this one. Meaning you need to vary up your spells to get high tactics.
2: Just don't remove any tactics ranks. Let people get to SSS, but make it diminish by 1 each round when above A. So people can quickly reach a decent rank but don't automatically stick to SSS. (also plz give us a number somewhere)
3: Remove the whole EE and Analyze Weakness thing, replace dark eye with a different cool dark spell, probably some kind of debuffing thing. I mean look, the harsh truth is that aside from maybe the occasional time you cast in on an event boss, nobody really wants that thing to be around. Or at least make it more reasonable and less reliant on tactics rank + dark eye. I don't think dark eye should be in this class, it looks kinda out of place honestly. It looks like a hexer skill.
4: Buff bunker formation slightly, make assault formation the same shape as the others. Should honestly make that balanced imo.
5: For orders, please make them last +1 round by default, and keep On My Mark, so they can last 3 rounds with MC. Just slightly buff assault order to make it something more juicy and worth using. An idea could be to make it work for multiple attacks (but not on twindance offhand), with a certain global limit, like 4 to 6. This would make it less dependent on party composition which is often random. Currently, assault order is mostly just good on builds that use summons. This would make it more versatile, would help the solo experience as well. Otherwise, just buff the damage a bit. And then a crazy idea is to make casting order give +1 area of effect to spells, on top of a bit more damage than it currently does. I think the world is ready for it. Wide lines, big bubbles, huge excel fir...
6: Make field medic a bit more powerful, combined with a stronger bonus from tactics rank. Combined with the more easy access to tactics rank I proposed above, I'm imagining it taking a deserved spot as "the really strong single-target heal, as long as you built up tactics rank".
7: Make the spells benefit from tactics rank, while also reducing their overall power. This would make it stronger on average for tactician, less for spellthief.
8: Maybe some skills could CONSUME tactics rank to become even stronger. Make it a more dynamic resource. What I'm imagining for instance is that some skills could have a bonus effect when triggered at SSS rank, taking you down a certain amount of points. "Okay guys, time for the final assault! First guy to attack gets to do +100 damage!"
9: I think tactician could use a skill to manually move nearby allies into formation. Like, pick 2 allies within 4 range and place them into free formation tiles within 3 range. Let's be honest, your allies don't really want to have to spend 3 momentum to move into your little square. If you do it yourself it feels good for you, and it feels good for them. Would be fun and solid imo.

Alright that's all I got, let me know your takes on tactician and your feedback on my proposals!

[Skullcatrons]

Tactician is a very cool class, and has some fun things you can do. However, there are many issues with tactician. I wanna discuss the different aspects of the class and my take on them before jumping into conclusions and solutions.

1: Most of the formation skills are pretty bad. Assault formation doesn't even allow you to create it with yourself in it, which makes it terrible by default. But at the same time it's kinda op if you get it to work which is a bizarre dichotomy. Bunker formation is the weakest, even if it's also kinda more well rounded and easier to use. Volley formation is kind of amazing, but it's mostly used by sniper builds to just give themselves the buff outright. I wouldn't say that one is a problem.

2: The order skills are okay at best. Assault order is fairly cool, and can yield some decent results. Casting order I think is too weak for sure. It's rarely worth casting because adding raw power to spells isn't doing that much, while basic attacks can crit and multiply the damage which makes it much more spicy. Guard order is ok, kind of a weird heal but ok. Charge order is not bad, actually kinda cool. Mostly used for getting your summons to move. Of course the big issue with order skills is that you need to be main classing tactician to get On My Mark, which is generally a pretty big cost. You don't get to have a parry skill, fleur, or whatever other MC bonuses you might want. It's the same issue as Lantern Bearer where MC is kinda the only way to go. This is especially painful for destiny tact that just doesn't get MC BK. Oof.

3: The tactician spells are weird. But also, they're really good, in some cases. Only a few of them are worth anything, but they have unique utility. The common meme is that tactician spells are way better in the hands of a spellthief. There's no real class-related reason to use those spells other than "well, they're there". Cool, I get a free KD in melee, I get a wall, I get a hesitation spell. But I dunno, I think it's more of a flavor issue in my mind, due to how random it is. They're just, utility spells tossed in from each element. They make sense from a gameplay perspective to an extent, and I think it's like a reference to a final fantasy class or something, but still, there's something off in my mind.

4: Enemy Evaluation is painful. It's something that tactician always had that is basically like... "Oh, it's a tactician that uses Enemy Eval. This is gonna suck". It's 100% a pvp skill as well. It's kinda like playing an optimized rune mage. Nobody wants to play against that, and nobody wants to be that guy these days. Then there's analyze weakness that just sucks in comparison. Even when you're fighting an event boss, it's kinda like... Oh, the boss is weaker now. I dunno though, I literally have never seen someone use this skill in PvE.

1 - Arcane formation reduces FP cost of all spells by 25%. Which is really nice in hand of a FP-hungry caster. Sure you may argue that they have HMC. Volley formation is already addressed so we won't speak of it. Attack Formation increases hit of everyone, but it's not necessarily valuable. At most, you'll find yourself using Arcane formation or Volley formation. Which is far better than their original conception.

2 - You only need charge, and guard orders. Any other orders tend to be obsolete. At best you're giving someone additional 70+ damage on their next attack. The orders exist only to give a tactician rank boosts. They all exists just so Tactician can have more Tactical rank increases for fatter Enemy evaluation/analyze weakness.

3 - The thing that's ringing in your head is screaming you that main point of these random spells was for Tactician's tactical rank again. Every spells stated that if you struck an enemy weak to that element. You gain one point in rank. While most of spells are indirect condition like Acid Rain, or direct condition like Domino Resonate. Sure you can argue that it is good in hand of a spellthief. But the whole idea of Tacticians using these spells all exist to build up Tactical Ranks. 

4- And this is what boils down to. The class revolves, and die by the tactical ranks. This is all it exists to do. It is the ultimate "I cuck you" class. It is the glorious "I stop you." The main-class benefit of Tactician is that your Enemy Eval and Analyze Weak is not halved. So it is very possible to see about roughly 35-40% reduction across the boards and both stacks. This is what make Tactician a class. A class in the name of tactical. You get lot of benefits for being a Tactician. 

There are also some other things that I need to put in. Field Medic isn't outrage garbage. It have tricky effect to remove a condition based on your GUI. Which honestly, you should be building anyways if you're taking Tactician for any reason. You might as well be running a Tactician/Engineer. Two classes that effectively works well together. Or even better. Tactician/Magic Gunner.

Just remember. The class lives and dies by the Enemy Eval and Analyze Weak. It can really triumph level 80 bosses in 4-man party. It can really bring you the world so you can deliver it some pain.

I don't really think it need to be buffed, or further empowered as it stands right now compared to other classes who are desperate for help.

[Rendar]

If there is one, singular, thing I would buff about this class?

It would be to make friendly summons dying not immediately tank your tactician rank back to the worst possible score.

"Oh no! My ruler buddy summoned a cake and turned it into a queen and a BOMB! Oops. My SSS ranking is now a D ranking!"

This class, quite literally, hates Engineer, Summoner (all of it), Ghost (Wraithguard!), and Ruler. It VISCERALLY hates Ruler.

Oh. It also hates multi-hits because Multi-hits of more than 10% of your HP (Guns say hello) will tank your ranking into the dirt more than a single axe attack that does the exact same amount will. I would much rather see "Losing Tactics Rank" from taking damage be reduced to One Instance Per Damage Tick. This would affect things like multi-hit guns, multi-hit spells... etc etc.

It's just a weird oddity, and I know the code already exists for this specific thing in the game already, because Armor of Nails doesn't proc a bajillion times if someone shoots you with a gun.

[sirtrex]

Field medic's performance relying on good tactics rank is kind of wonky. Tactics rank falls to D the moment a char drops, and also starts to drop whenever people start taking significant damage. So it would ironically heal the most when a heal is needed the least and vice versa.

Instead maybe have the inverse. Field medic healing the most when tactics rank is lowest or there could be some counter system in place.

Each tactician with field medic gets a triage prep score. Each turn the tact ends with a tactics score higher than C they get a proportional amount of triage score that rolls over between rounds. The higher this triage prep score the more powerful the heal. The score would drop though as the skill is used. For instance the most powerful heal would take 3 triage score, but a res takes 5-6. This way Tacticians can be rewarded for good play overall, and not have a gimped tool when they most need it to be strong. 

Since revives can be based on points this could be an way for a tact to earn additional revives ontop of the one free one they get for maxing out the skill.

[Poruku]

My second suggestion is that you simply never lose tactics rank, so no more losing ranks from damage or ally death. I just don't think it's a fun mechanic cause it punishes you for losing.

Also lol yeah I forgot arcane formation cause it's so bad. That thing absolutely needs a buff.

And yeah I know the idea of the spells is to hit weaknesses to get tactics rank but in all my years of playing this video game I've not once seen a tactician hit a weakness. For real. It just doesn't work in practice that's why I didn't even mention it

[Rendar]

My second suggestion is that you simply never lose tactics rank, so no more losing ranks from damage or ally death. I just don't think it's a fun mechanic cause it punishes you for losing.

Also lol yeah I forgot arcane formation cause it's so bad. That thing absolutely needs a buff.

And yeah I know the idea of the spells is to hit weaknesses to get tactics rank but in all my years of playing this video game I've not once seen a tactician hit a weakness. For real. It just doesn't work in practice that's why I didn't even mention it

It only ever happens in PVP, or the fabled Tact/AQ with Innovator wielding an Indignant Idol.

[Snake]

It lacks a more immediate defensive option that is not toasting 3 rounds to set up something that invalidates an enemy for 11 rounds.

Same issue that Evoker had, which it's just a primed nuke with your only hope is not being a slower tank without enough damage (or mobility) to keep up with them as they build up ranks. I'd not say it requires a full fledged rework, but, its basic game plan needs to be addressed at some point.

The "googly eyes" tactic is getting old.