[Skullcatrons]

Your current performance rating reading this thread:

It's no real secret that Tactician's Performance rating passive is probably the most annoying thing to maintain.  It goes up, and down. And if you start to get hit, it declines very rapidly and almost right away with no hesitation. You're punished if someone multi-hits you for more than 5% of your health per attack, and you can't do anything about it. All you can do is mope as you watch that ranking go down straight to D, and you become boring and mid.

No matter how you tried. You're going to lose that performance rating at first brisk, and it's downturn spiral. If someone in your party dies, or yourself even. Or your dog. Or your otherworldly species. Or some unknown eldritch horror that is somehow supporting you, perish. You're back to the starting point. There are few exceptions to the rule. Like Dark Eyes don't degrade your rank if they die. But still. Losing your rank sucks. 

First. Let remember the clear problem. 
You lose a rank if you take more than 5% of your health in damage.
Your rank is automatically reset if your ally is dead.

Now I'm not against for rank-resetting if an ally is dead. Because sometimes that can be easily avoided with good composition. But first one, not so much. You're bound to lose a rank, and it's going to suck completely. 

In case it isn't clear. Most players average around 800-900 HPs. 5% of their health is averaging 42 damage. The average damage before damage reductions, resistances, armor are generally hovering around 250~. After resistances, that damage tend to be 100-200~ damage. Meaning you just lose a rank anyways. 

While Tactician can max their rank in good composition, so can they lose it almost right away just simply by getting smacked a couple of times. 

it would be nice to see a change to losing a rank via damage retrieval, either by increasing their 5% to 15% (120-135 damage average), receiving a critical strike, getting weakness'd, and suffering knockdowns. Instead of just getting smacked in face with multihits.



Description of skill for anyone who wants it.

[Snake]

Tactics Rank should be fluid rather than static, and the way to reduce it should be based on granting bonus effects to Tactician actions once they reach a certain amount.

[Autumn]

Currently the biggest thing holding back Tactician in terms of discussion is that Enemy Evaluation currently has very little counterplay aside from hitting the Tactician's tactic ranks and making sure they stay down to minimize the impact of the skill. Dark Eyes + Evaluate is such a game ending interaction that getting hit by it assures the fight is over, there is no one except for VA/Spellthief/Performer who can viably recover from 8 rounds of -27% Total Damage, Total Evade and Total Hit, it becomes such a game ending button.

As someone who loves playing Tactician and wants to see it flourish, I am requesting to please change Enemy Evaluate away from percentages, it presents a very unfun gameplay pattern to face, the change to make it 6m has no changed how volatile it is, and merely restricted it to being paired with 1m movement or confusion.

And then tactics ranks can be whatever system they want to be when it is something different. If a suggestion should be provided, I would recommend that the skill negates any elemental resistances the target has (like winter's bite), letting it's call outs for elemental weaknesses matter more, as well as playing towards Tactician's plethora of spells being able to hit those weaknesses with, and thus gain tactics ranks.

[Snake]

I'd only hope that comes with their momentum being reduced back down to 3M, with a higher cooldown instead. But I agree with ole' Aootoomn.

[Poruku]

Yeah, make it a 3m ability that actually makes sense as a 3m skill. Like a simple flat penalty to hit and evade would already be pretty nice.

And then we can finally make a tactics rank balance sweep.

I think we definitely need more ways to gain tactics rank naturally, like with the offensive spells for instance. Make them better with tactics rank and make thrm give tactics rank

[Maromar158]

Yeah, make it a 3m ability that actually makes sense as a 3m skill. Like a simple flat penalty to hit and evade would already be pretty nice.

And then we can finally make a tactics rank balance sweep.

I think we definitely need more ways to gain tactics rank naturally, like with the offensive spells for instance. Make them better with tactics rank and make thrm give tactics rank

Maybe tie tactics ranks to certain combos or doing technical stuff, and allies successfully taking advantage of orders and whatnot. 

Enemy gave themselves a buff that raises armor like ensui? Hit them with the acid spell that reduces armor. Chain soak into electricity? Push an enemy into a hazard?



It'd represent the tact manipulating the battle and adapting a bit more than simply exploiting elemental weaknesses.

[Skullcatrons]

Enemy Evaluation is strong.

Reduce the Enemy Evaluation to 3/3 Skill. (Not including spirited.)

5+Tactic Ranks+Rank invested = Flat decrease to Hit/Evade. This means that at SSS, enemy'll suffer 15 Hit/Evade/Critical. And for damage, that'll be percentage/2.

- With Dark Eye Debuff, the enemy will suffer 22 hit/evade/critical, and 11% outgoing damage reduction. The round duration will always be capped at five round regardless of tactic rank, or dark eyes. 

But of course, this is significant nerf. This would almost make nobody like using EE ever especially whatsoever.

So what if we add a new tag to Enemy Evaluation?
Inflict Uncoverable Debuff.

Afflicted enemy will not benefit from tile effects whereas they would've. This include:
Solsphere (For Holy Aura). Sanctuary. Smokescreen. Cherry Blossom. Rune Mage's Smokescreen.
And few other that I'm forgetting. But you get what I mean.

For instance, if someone attack afflicted target in smokescreen. They would not suffer the hit penalty they would've incurred from the smokescreen. Or the person cannot get Holy Aura from the Solsphere, because of the debuff.