Why not rework flanking into something fun to play?

[xCristo.2063]

As the title says, why is flanking still a thing for a lot of classes and it's not replaced with something that can be done by any casual players without having to drag his whole squad after him because he loses damage? Flanking in itself is against your recent buffs/adjust to specs that focus on teamplay rather than a player being able to do everything. Having to go out of your squad to flank usually means losing boons and missing cleanses/heals that can be lifesavers, and this applies for most unexperienced players (which is a big percentage of the player base). Also, I bet everyone who experienced bosses turning around randomly had a blast in those moments. I know that not that many specs have in the traits flanking (which btw still sucks), but rune of the thief continue to pop-up in a lot of fun builds, because of the lack of precision. Not saying to buff precision, because that would make those classes pretty overpowered, but I feel that flanking in a lot of cases is more of a disadvantage than an advantage and that shouldn't be the case. I mentioned fun builds; some of those are indeed fun, but very hard to play because it requires constant relocation and short-medium range skills that can miss the target. Now that is alright on a medium golem or a non-moving medium boss (you still need a lot of knowledge about bosses/mechanics etc, which isn't beginner or casual friendly at all, but it works sometimes), but what about a big boss or even a small boss? On a big boss you'll end up too far from the group, unless both you and your group are very experienced. On a small boss, missing your position is very punishing and there is nothing much that can be done, so again requires experienced people. Now what if the boss moves constantly, like minister li, ankka, twin largos etc, flanking becomes downright impossible to constantly do even by most skilled players. 

People will probably think when they see this post "just replace them with eagle runes and get over it", but what I want to point out is that flanking as a mechanic is poorly designed, especially if they try to focus on more movement in new content. In raids it is still working to some extent, if they don't plan on reworking them, but having to go to a certain area to gain a bonus that other specs/classes gain by just existing and more ruins all the fun of playing that spec (fact even supported by the popularity of said classes in end game content).

[Doggie.3184]

Not like you can see the enemies in most battles to even flank them. Can't hide other players' effects.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Alot of classes have these drawbacks, especially when it comes to critical hits. Sometimes you have to make choices in your build of whether you want to include a trait or not, and of course not including it means less damage but can provide you with more consistent damage, which is often more important.

 

This is just a factor of build quality and skill level balancing. Know your own limitations and then build around them, instead of trying to force yourself to do something you don't enjoy.

Edited March 7, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

So, flanking is weird in this game.  There's a 90 degree cone that counts as the 'front' of the creature.  This is where all the attacks are directed.  Anything in the other 270 degrees of this circle count as flanking.  Knowing this, players with bonuses to striking flanked targets can stand to the left or right of a boss and get those.

Source; Outflanked in Fractals was pain and that's where learned all about what this game considers to be 'flanking' and 'in front of' when mobs would hit me on my side and deal massive damage.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Andifulated.3482

[Danikat.8537]

You don't need to be far away to flank an enemy, you can do it at point-blank range, and as @Andifulated.3482 says you don't have to go all the way behind an enemy to flank them. The Wiki page has a helpful diagram, but basically anywhere except directly in front counts as flanking. Both those things combined mean you don't have to be out of range of boons from the rest of your squad to flank an enemy.

I use shortbow on my ranger where 4 out of 5 skills get additional effects for flanking (the most important being extra CC on skills 4 and 5) and can do it when I'm only a couple of steps away from the commander, still close enough for stacking but at an angle so it also counts as flanking.

Also you only need to stay there long enough to fire off the relevant skills, then you can move back, or somewhere else since there's lots of reasons to keep moving in this game.

[Shuzuru.3651]

Well, considering that most of the time, the position of the pack (when there is one) is behind the boss, there shouldn't be any problem, also bosses that move to much are mostly condi favored boss, so you don't want to use power build in the first place.

Of course there is some bosses where it doesn't work, but it's not new that some build don't work well on some bosses (and it's not about flanking), so no problem with that to.