Concise Tank Balance Changes

[Mnemosynia]

Lolno.
No no no
We just need to go back to bring tanks back for different things.

War for dps tanking and shitty mitigation, party wide damage increases.

Drk For Magic Tanking and debuffing slightly less mitigation mid range dps.

Paladin for physical damage mitigatoin the most mitigation the least dps party wide mitigation.

Square needs to ignore this class does X why can't my character use X too and simple say ITS BECAUSE YOUR NOT THAT CLASS.

Bring back reprisal bring back scourge bring back old delirium.

[Ekimmak]

Lolno.
No no no
We just need to go back to bring tanks back for different things.

Square needs to ignore this class does X why can't my character use X too and simple say ITS BECAUSE YOUR NOT THAT CLASS.

Well, that's definitely going to go back to the Heavensward days of one tank locked out of savage completely.

At the moment, it's just an unfair split. I'm always going to play DRK over PLD simply because PLD feels monotonous and uninteresting to play.

[Kabooa]

Square needs to ignore this class does X why can't my character use X too and simple say ITS BECAUSE YOUR NOT THAT CLASS.

Bring back reprisal bring back scourge bring back old delirium.

The irony here being that you want Dark Knight to have a fire-and-forget DoT (others had it first), bring back a Magic Damage reduction (others had it first), and a counter attack with a debuff (Monk had it first)

[Lyth]

If job gameplay decisions were based on whichever job "got there first", we might as well give up on introducing new jobs into the game. Sometimes, jobs get grandfathered into things for entirely the wrong reasons. WoW went through similar growing pains when it transitioned from having only one job capable of raid tanking to several, between Vanilla and BC. Sometimes you have to give up turf in order to allow for more diverse job selection. It's a small price to pay for building up more interest for the role.

The physical tank/magical tank identities were always a bit silly because WAR was equally good at both. I'd personally rather see physical/magical only cooldowns shift into the role action side of things, so that you actually have to think about what sort of defensive you want to bring to a given fight instead of always picking Rampart. I'm kind of surprised that Protect didn't take this direction as well, alongside its classic counterpart, Shell.

[Seraphor]

The irony here being that you want Dark Knight to have a fire-and-forget DoT (others had it first), bring back a Magic Damage reduction (others had it first), and a counter attack with a debuff (Monk had it first)

Well of course other jobs had them first, DRK was an expansion job.

Did you know BLM had fire, ice and thunder spells before RDM?

[Kabooa]

Well of course other jobs had them first, DRK was an expansion job.

Did you know BLM had fire, ice and thunder spells before RDM?

And White mage had medica 2 before Diurnal Ast.

Rather than actually differentiate Dark Knight (Like they want) they instead fall back on copy-pasted skills that work exactly the same across every iteration (Fracture, Touch of Death, Phelbotomize, Lead Shot, Scourge), which is the thematic opposite of what they stated they want to happen.

[NocturniaUzuki]

As a healer main who decided to browse the tank forum, this being the first thread I see is depressing as hell.

Veil and Shake, useless? Do you have any idea how much of a difference that much mitigation can make? Removing those likely makes solo healing O11S on WHM impossible (Delta Attack leaves my party at sub-10% with Veil and PoA active). It also makes countless other situations cost an extra AoE heal, raising MP costs to an extent that solo healing becomes next to impossible without dedicated DPS giving you MP 24/7. But based on your views, I expect you see those as useless too?

My taking flak for suggesting things like the old Spear were useful because they had uses in non-mainstream content is one thing. But suggesting something that messes up mainstream solo healing to such an extent and consequently also impacts healers' ability to contribute DPS to the raid (if you're one of those DPS-is-all-that-matters people) is ridiculous.

I get that maybe you feel that the tanks are unbalanced right now. I can't really comment on it, since I don't know enough about tanks. But what I can tell you is that I don't value one tank over another, as a healer. Doubling up tanks can be an issue, since you lose access to their full party resources. But every tank brings something to the fight that is really awesome. DPS-aside, playing with a well-played PLD is a joy, as a healer. WAR and DRK too, depending on the circumstances. WAR's HP is invaluable, as is its ability to bring down adds that much faster. DRK is amazing for single-target mitigation and dealing with tank busters.

Some other examples of how removing Shake and Veil would affect me as a WHM on mainstream content:

O10S Akh Morn during Exas would likely require an extra swiftcasted-heal to solo heal through, at the cost of ~1680MP.

O11S Big Fists into Electric Slide might be impossible (I currently do it with Largesse > PoM > Sprint > SC > get stunned > sprint to mid + SC Medica II > Cure III > Cure III > Plenary Indulgence; however, this rotation relies on tank shields for the Electric Slide - might be able to get away with it if I used Medica instead, but then I may miss people with the AoE (15y vs 20y) and I would have to Medica II again after the second Cure III to apply regens).

O11S Pantokrators would cost at least an extra 1680 MP each.

O9S Earthquake #1 would require ~1680-2200 extra MP.

Those differences may not sound like a lot, but MP is already tight on those fights as is, even with carefully planned Thin Airs to cut the largest MP costs.

[Lyth]

I think the broader question at stake here is what role do the developers want tanks to play in raid-wide mitigation. It's either an essential function or it's not.

In Heavensward, every tank had a raid-wide mitigation move. WAR had Path, DRK had Reprisal, and PLD had Veil. Stormblood changed all that. Now every tank has Reprisal, WAR has Shake, and PLD has Veil and PoA. Not every tank is capable of providing the same level of raid-wide mitigation. That's fine from a flavour perspective, but you can't design content which requires you to have access to all those abilities. After all, you're not getting Shake and Veil if you bring a DRK. And personally, I think that's fine. You want the tanks to feel different.

The problem with Veil and Shake, however, is not mitigation. Notice that nobody pointed a finger at Passage of Arms. Veil and Shake are unique in that they are both barrier shields. Barrier shield effects have a significant impact on limit break gauge generation. This means faster clear times, and better party dps. The problem is that these are functionally covert raid dps buffs, and everyone wants access to those. The solution isn't necessarily remove these skills or shift all the burden of mitigating raidwides on to healers. The solution is to completely remove the limit gauge generation associated with barrier shields.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I think the broader question at stake here is what role do the developers want tanks to play in raid-wide mitigation. It's either an essential function or it's not.

In Heavensward, every tank had a raid-wide mitigation move. WAR had Path, DRK had Reprisal, and PLD had Veil. Stormblood changed all that. Now every tank has Reprisal, WAR has Shake, and PLD has Veil and PoA. Not every tank is capable of providing the same level of raid-wide mitigation. That's fine from a flavour perspective, but you can't design content which requires you to have access to all those abilities. After all, you're not getting Shake and Veil if you bring a DRK. And personally, I think that's fine. You want the tanks to feel different.

The problem with Veil and Shake, however, is not mitigation. Notice that nobody pointed a finger at Passage of Arms. Veil and Shake are unique in that they are both barrier shields. Barrier shield effects have a significant impact on limit break gauge generation. This means faster clear times, and better party dps. The problem is that these are functionally covert raid dps buffs, and everyone wants access to those. The solution isn't necessarily remove these skills or shift all the burden of mitigating raidwides on to healers. The solution is to completely remove the limit gauge generation associated with barrier shields.

I had no idea about the LB generation. I'd have no issue with removing that generation though.

P.S. Not everyone wants access to raid-DPS buffs. I don't particularly care about DPS. In my view, if you clear a fight before enrage, you can't really claim to know the fight. Because you only know it up to the point you clear. :S.... (I am guilty of this too)

[Jollyy5]

Out of the three tanks, WAR is my favorite -precisely- because of the aesthetics, WAR draws its power from an inner beast, and in my opinion SE has nailed that beastly fighting style to a T.

Despite the changes to WAR's kit since 4.0, I'm still of the opinion that WAR is no easier to play than PLD when it comes to DPS rotations, so I don't understand why people keep saying WAR is the faceroll tank.

PLD used to be the boring faceroll tank with their 1-2-3 combo and boring visuals, which changed in HW and further so in SB, thank god.

Anyway, I think the balance is pretty alright between PLD and WAR, they both have a pretty nice flow with PLD having a little more utility. But as for DRK, it's just way too complex and involved class to play optimally which is also negatively affected by latency due to all the oGCD weaving required (looking at you, Dark Arts spam), which I believe to be big part of the reason why DRK is so unpopular.

I think tanks shouldn't be too complex to play in general since you are oftentimes delegated to spotting and calling out mechanics, giving you less time to focus on mitigating damage and surveying the field, especially during progression and PUGs.