Will ShadowBringers make tanks feel more unique?

[Lyth]

I like to think of the MT/OT concept as a sort of quarantine system. It places checks and balances in place so that you don't have one supertank which has access to all of the best actions. We need to dethrone the existing regime first of WAR as the best offensive tank and PLD as the best defensive tank. Nuance can come later.

[Xenosan]

I worry they will simplify the jobs further as they have in SB. WAR is a glorified 2.x SMN: 3 festers a min & occassional enkindle, otherwise snooze. DRKs gauge/Bloodspiller is a glorified 2.x Shield Swipe proc.

My concern for OT/MT design is that if the definition of OT is strictly to adding support skills. That should be one possibility of a OT definition, but not the only imo. If so it'll be like saying RDM should only be rezbot

[Giubba]

I basically stopped playing months ago and only recently came back for preparing the new exp because i wasn't able anymore to stomach seeing my main class DRK being gelded .

[Shurrikhan]

I see the difference very well between Warrior and Paladin, they both feel unique in what they bring overall. Maybe it looks less obvious because of the DRK who looks kind of between them ?
Their 0-100 bar has nothing in common. One is too deal more dmg overall (and/or heal), the other is to be way more tanky and to protect his allies.

To me, one feels like a "You can now use the rest of your toolkit, including your most central mitigation skill - 2 charges" and the other "Your most central mitigation cooldown skill - 2 charges". Not the same, but not particularly distinct, either.

To be fair, though, all job gauges with only one set cost feel rather same-ish to me, even if Ninja's at least has a priority order.

I'll agree, though, that DRK feels like the least distinct or fleshed out, so to speak.

[Shurrikhan]

I like to think of the MT/OT concept as a sort of quarantine system. It places checks and balances in place so that you don't have one supertank which has access to all of the best actions. We need to dethrone the existing regime first of WAR as the best offensive tank and PLD as the best defensive tank. Nuance can come later.

Wouldn't that just make Warrior all the more assured? The allotments of MT and OT would just make it all the easier for Warrior to divide and conquer its way to the throne. You'd just end up losing access, even more severely and for even less inherent reasons, to whichever job synergizes least with Warrior.

The solution to high percentages of Warriors is whatever gap exists in practice between their kit and other's. Splitting tanks into OT and MT will have no direct effect on that. Balance by fundamental design/capacity/applicability and in-practice tDPS output will. The work isn't going to be avoided just by systematically ensuring sure that people can only play which tank they want a third to half less often.

[Lyth]

That's only true if the dev team deliberately make WAR dominant in its respective category. But they could do that even without this change, if they really wanted to drive people away from tanking.

Up until now, we've had a lot of double standards. All tanks must be equal (can't let those PLDs have that extra utility), but WAR always has to hit the hardest out of all the tanks (because that's its theme, apparently). If they split the tanks, you can't justify that kind of thinking. WAR has to at least be equivalent to whatever job it shares its respective category with. It gives us greater transparency.

[Shurrikhan]

That's only true if the dev team deliberately make WAR dominant in its respective category. But they could do that even without this change, if they really wanted to drive people away from tanking.

Up until now, we've had a lot of double standards. All tanks must be equal (can't let those PLDs have that extra utility), but WAR always has to hit the hardest out of all the tanks (because that's its theme, apparently). If they split the tanks, you can't justify that kind of thinking. WAR has to at least be equivalent to whatever job it shares its respective category with. It gives us greater transparency.

It can make transparent if/when Warrior receives more tricks in its developers' candy bag, but the change would have no reason to better balance the value of those tricks. So what if you generate more raid healing when it doesn't even save a single GCD of healing or allow any greater damage uptime for the party or prevent death after a further AoE or vulnerability stack taken? Yet, we can defend that waste with "well, its an MT Tank", while Warrior is left to all the simple and high value of its damage -- now thoroughly niched and "thematically appropriate/distinct". No, the split gives us at most as much transparency as a display shelf.

[Dzian]

I like to think of the MT/OT concept as a sort of quarantine system. It places checks and balances in place so that you don't have one supertank which has access to all of the best actions. We need to dethrone the existing regime first of WAR as the best offensive tank and PLD as the best defensive tank. Nuance can come later.

Geenrally thats what the role actions system did. it basically make every job within a role a super job. by giving every job all the best actions..

this is just how the game is desgned. and is why so many actions and skillswere removed and so many more are still not even worth slotting on hotbars. not just for the tanks however but for every role.

the game is built around high homogenization and no as such no job can bring anything unique to a party that is generally considered useful.

PLD for example have a fairly unique ability to pacificy on shield swipe. but in what encounter ever is that of any use to a party?
BLMs can sleep but the same question stands? when is it of any use ever to a party? or the bind on freeze? or heavy?

Every job must have all the best skills because any that doesn't will essentially be left out of the party entirely. this is why so many of the skills jobs have don't even get slotted, because they're useless. if they were useful skills in anyway then the obsession with homogenization would see every job having access to them...

this is why ultimately why everything feels so samey and identical.. the original concept washey lets have a super defesive pld tank with low offence. and we'll have a super offensive warrior tank with low defence.. and anyone whos played for any length of time will know how that turned out.. so badly that paladin has recieved more offensive buffs than i can count. and now you have 3 tanks that all have strong offence and strong defence....

any new tanks or new jobs at all then are innevitably just going to be more of the same... the only way to diversify would be to complete reshape the combat from it's highly predictable and scripted meta to something more random and unpredictable and at the same time free up the party compositions from a standard 2-2-4.

in this fashion you could seperate tanks have the super tough defensive one that can take an incredible beating but has low offence. but then frees up a slot for a 5th dps.. or have more offensive tanks that can dish out some serious hurt but need to take turns with another tank getting pounded.

but with the obsession on homogenization anything new is just gonna be more of the same... in much the same way samurai is basically just another monk. or ast is just another whitemage..

jobs will basically never feel unique because anything one job can do that makes a unique from others is generally not even worth slotting on your action bars

[Bright-Flower]

DPS seem different enough to me, though I haven't played every job to be fair. But Nin/Drg/Mnk feel different enough to me. SMN/BLM/RDM like the TC said are all different enough.

There is a certain level of homogenization in the tanks/healers when it comes to their base abilities. Because these roles all have to cover certain things. Every tank is going to get rampart, have a longer cd bigger mitigation tool like sentinel, some version of temp immunity like hallowed ground.They'll all have an aoe enmity move and an enmity combo and a dps combo.

I haven't played WAR so maybe I'm wrong by not being able to factor them in, but when it comes to higher level play, I don't think DRK and PLD are identical though.

PLD for example doesn't manage mp int he same way drk does. Unless you have to use an emergency clemency if the healers go down or something, you pretty much only use mp for holy spirit spamming. PLD dps basically cycles between phyiscal phase where we use FoF > goring blade > RA > RA > goring blade again before FoF falls off, and magic burst, requiscat > holy spirit x5. Then, we go back to our dps combos where we regen that mp via riot blade and shelltron procs.

Dark Knight I haven't played as much but manages its mp and mp regen much more intricately, choosing when and what to dump MP into via dark arts and having different means of getting mp back. With more things to spend their gauge on where PLD only has shelltron and intervention.

While they both have some similar base tools, and I could play both jobs with the same key binds if I wanted to do the bare minimum, I feel like playing either of these jobs at a high level would be quite different.

[Phoenicia]

Oh no! There it is, the "H" word again!

There is a certain level of homogenization in the tanks/healers when it comes to their base abilities. Because these roles all have to cover certain things. Every tank is going to get rampart, have a longer cd bigger mitigation tool like sentinel, some version of temp immunity like hallowed ground.They'll all have an aoe enmity move and an enmity combo and a dps combo.

What's you're describing here is the bare minimum "REQUIRED TOOLS" to fulfill their jobs as tanks. People are just abusing that homogenization word without really knowing what it means anymore I think. It's the same vein of people asking for PLD to get snap enmity so pulling as a PLD is atrociously bad as it is now. Is that homogenization or is it asking for bare minimum functionality for the role?

When you make things too different, you more likely than not end up with balance issues. Just look at Defiance vs ShO/Grit. What that's causing is:

PLD/DRK: "oGCD and no MP cost so it's better and we want it!"

WAR: "No you can't have it because it doesn't grant immediate eHP like yours!"

And a very long argument will start like "you can IB which gives enormous eHP in both HP and dmg reduction", but if WAR is spending a GCD to gain the benefit of defiance as is, then why are PLDs and DRKs asking for it to not cost them a GCD and we're back a full circle.

No imagine SE decides that tanks shouldn't all have enmity combos and instead decide to give only 1 of the tanks a combo, the other tank purely OGCDs and the third tank a stand alone enmity GCD.

The enmity combo tank will be the least desired to tank because the enmity combo will desync them from raid buffs... Unless they make the enmity combo their biggest damage (HW WAR) and you will have the guaranteed best MT and worst OT in the game.

The purely oGCD enmity tank and the 1 GCD enmity tank can also cause same issues. If the GCD is a DPS loss (kinda like single target Flash) then the tank that has it doesn't wanna use it.. If it's a DPS gain, refer to aggro combo tank. oGCD enmity tank might be the best one as far as enmity is concerned, kinda like how DRK right now is, where DA Plunge is DPS neutral, and DADP and DAPS are minuscule loss/neutral.

So now I'm confused, because so many have homogenization-phobia we're throwing the balance out the window, but these same people are also crying for tank balance when the balance issues are present because tanks aren't at the same level when it comes to basic functions:

1- Enmity: PLD utterly sucks.
2- Damage: WAR has the "ease of access" that it can be too far ahead. Even if the other two tanks can theoretically deal more damage, fights don't cater to 100% uptime and WAR's burst makes it unfair to even DPS jobs.
3- AoE Damage: PLD's AoE damage just doesn't exist (it's the bottm, even healers do more damage). WAR is third or fourth top where only BLM and SMN are guaranteed to deal more DPS in AoE.
4- Mitigation: Holmgang is retardedly busted, Living Dead sucks donkey butts (yes, plural).
5- Raid Mitigation: PLD hogs them all, WAR has no business having an AoE shield, DRK is in the gutter for this. You shouldn't give jobs exclusivity to mandatory tools in a game where you only have spots to pick (soon even less than) half the jobs in the game for a raid.

What we have now:
PLD can heal, help mitigate, cover, raid mitigate, self mitigate (enough to MT anyway), and deal respectable damage in raids.
WAR ignores half the mechanics (thanks to holmgang), kitchen sink the other half, and if it comes short, PLD or DRK can help it, it also deals ridiculous damage in raids and applies slashing.
DRK can mitigate more than WAR or PLD, but WAR and PLD don't care because holmgang and Cover and tank swaps.... DRK can do the same DPS as a WAR, but good luck finding a player good enough to know how to do it.

Homogeneity? Really? Is it because all 3 tanks have, gods forbid, (almost) the same enmity tools and share Rampart and Reprisal? Is your Honda Civic the same as my Porsche Panamera Turbo because they both have air-conditioning and blue tooth? Or is a train a car because both have wheels to travel on the ground?