Why having a dedicated MT and dedicated OT is a TERRIBLE idea

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Originally Posted by shao32

TBN is the intervetion counterpart since both skills work similary, both are single target protection of short duration, both have quick recast, and both skills get boosted by his own tank, TBN with DRK hp and intervetion by other CDs skills, im pretty aware how intervetion works still his boost defense is limited by the recast of such skill (rampart, sentinel) vs TBN having his full protection always.

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Both are active mitigation effects, yes, but the way that they work is fundamentally different. Given that you'll normally be using them on a Tank to help soak a TB, Intervention wins out because it can be more powerful an effect with combination of other CD's. Whereas TBN is only ever 10% of DRK's max HP (Which will essentially be about equal to the other Tanks. Outside of WAR whom has HP boosts)

At base Intervention is still as potent as TBN (Multiplicative DR stacking aside at least)

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Originally Posted by shao32

WAR still have slashing debuff but apart of that defensive utility make and edge on progresion and less skilled raids to dealt with the big raid aoes and other mechanics, DRK lacks any impactfull utility so by default should have more dps to compensate that or get reprisal back.

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Except this is how you unbalance things. For a long time WAR had higher DPS to account for lack of utility. How well did that turn out? Considering how you like to complain about how OP WAR has been for so long, you, of all people, should know how dangerous giving a Tank DPS in lieu of utility is for balance.

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Originally Posted by shao32

its not only holmgang that make WAR the best MT, it defiance and his powerhouse despite not being optimal its a edge and none of the other 2 can compete against that.

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For all intents and purposes it is Holmgang that makes WAR the best MT. Defiance while defensively strong, is rarely used. Such is why people often mention that DRK is the current king of self mitigation because TBN is pretty effective in the meta where Tank Stances aren't used outside of the pull.

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Originally Posted by shao32

i doubt you, me and anyone here really understand the process of buff/debuff anything in this game

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It's honestly not hard to figure out some things. If I wanted to spend the time, I could even go through ability by ability and adjust numbers to achieve balance. I'm just not getting paid to do that.

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Originally Posted by shao32

making a clone army with diferent paintings in the armor don't solve anything either since you will still want it to be diferent enough to feel unique somehow, and archive that only with dps rotation is blant bcs we never have a complex dps rotation

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Except there's much and more that can be utilized to create different feels.

For a start, DPS rotations are ALREADY major differences to playstyle. With WAR being all about maintaining Storm's Eye and gaming their Beast Gauge. With PLD alternating between maximizing Fight or Flight and using Requiescat. With DRK being all about managing MP to use Dark Arts to empower skills as well as weaving in oGCD attacks like Carve and Spit and managing Blood usage.

Outside of that, there can be different flavours of the baseline CD's. For example, how Vengeance has the retaliation damage on it. How Sentinel is stronger but has a longer CD. So long as the baseline effect is the same across the board, tanks will be balanced even with little bonuses for flavour.

Then there's personal utility skills. Things like mobility from Plunge/Onslaught (Vs Tempered Will). There can be something like Interject/Low Blow that provides Tanks with a universal interrupt skill that ignores diminishing returns, each with having some class flavour (For example, DRK could get a shield if interrupting a spell. PLD could get a guaranteed block.)

Things that aren't part of the "Core" tank role are flexible to be made unique or to be given in a variety of flavours to suit the Tank(s) that get it.

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Originally Posted by shao32

if it was so easy then they will never have such problems in the first place

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Well, this implies that the balance team is as invested and knowledgeable about Tanks as players. Often this is not the case (See: How literally every WHM saw how terrible the Lily mechanic was from the reveal and how years later, SE still haven't got a clue as to why the mechanic is such garbage)

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Originally Posted by shao32

holmgang, living and hallowed are already counterparts, what separate this skills are just numbers and they complety fail to balance this ones despite bein so straightforward and obvious

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These are are actually more complex to balance, because their effects are of different strength.

It's why I don't particularly like them, because they're always going to be a nightmare to balance because of how vastly different each effect is for the same outcome (Not dying to a Tankbuster irregardless of the amount of damage it deals)

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Originally Posted by shao32

now utility really depends of the content too, cover don't break anything bcs PLD still have to use CDs to survive the hit so it's not like holmgang that just roll over mechanics several times in a fight saving CDs, intervetion the same, at basic levels its not better that TBN but the moment you have to spend you own CDs its being equal to make a tank swap, the diference cover save that swaping process transfering damage to PLD and in a normal process you just swap and use you own CDs directly.

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Cover and Intervention allows for a party to bypass some Tank Swaps. Since they don't need to actually swap the tank for the damage to be diverted away.

Meanwhile, TBN actually benefits you from tank swapping, because then it becomes 20% max HP instead of 10%. But this means that you're actually following the intended mechanics.

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Originally Posted by shao32

the last thing, let's face it, it will be never be a perfect balance

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No, but you can get things pretty close, to the point that only hardcore min/maxers actually care about the differences.

Which is far better than forcing people to play specific comps because you can't be bothered to actually look at the issues behind the role.

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Originally Posted by shao32

but again it will dosen't matter if GUN compete against PLD they are not going to be the best comp if the MT-OT barrier is there, of course in theory, in my opinion its better, i preffer it over having a clone army with diferent weapons, but i will still being DRK no matter what they do.

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The thing is, there's so much more balancing that would need to be done in order to make sure that you actually have a "MT-OT barrier" and then in that barrier then also balancing the pairs so you don't just have WAR + PLD dominating the game still.

Meanwhile, as mentioned previously, there's not actually a whole lot that needs to be done to balance out all Tanks between each other, it's mostly just sorting out the glaring inequality between the tools they have. Simple.

Since, it shouldn't even erode their identity. Unless you're telling me that outside of the 1m lower cooldown on Holmgang and existence of Shake it Off that WAR and DRK play exactly the same?

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

SE just needs to give it up honestly. Can't release full jobs, can't release full races, now they are considering tanks being only half a tank.

There are many reasons why it'd be a problem if taken to the extreme, for all the points illustrated and more. Most notable to me are: Are their OT's in 4-mans? And if OT dps is higher than the MT jobs, people are just gonna try to make 2 OT work for everything. Oh you need to pug a tank for the night? Hope you find the right one, or have both types leveled and can perform equally on them.

All 4 tanks need to be equally capable of either MT or OT as the situation calls for. Absolutely idiotic to split them in to separate tank roles.



This is a valid point, but to me it seems to lead down the path of "Jack of all trades, master of none". Instead of being really good at one job, you're just mediocre at a couple because the system forces you to be.

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You can still separate job identity (defined as how they feel to play and their character) while having largely overlapping/homogenozed base abilities. For example, all 3 tanks have similar dps right now, but old does it via holy magic and swordsmanship in tandem, drk does it by managing blood and MP, war does it with mega berserk. Even if you gave all 3 identicle defensive CDs, they would still be distinct classes based on their offensive situations. There will be some homogenaztion necessary, but that's not a death sentence. Tanking I'm this game is really being a dps with bigger defensive stats and a few mitigation CDs. Dps are distinct as all get out and fairly well balanced. Tank dps ie also distinct and balanced. Let the mitigation and (lol) enmity be homogenized. Fine with me. The classes can still be different and fun.

Let's be real, hitting rampart before a tank buster isnt the reason we play tanks. So what if rampart is the same for everyone. Let them differentiate themselves the same way drg, nin, sam and mnk are different. On the rotationand offensive mechanic side. That is a lot more practical than creating yet another sub class the playerbase WILL find a way to break.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

You can still separate job identity (defined as how they feel to play and their character) while having largely overlapping/homogenozed base abilities. For example, all 3 tanks have similar dps right now, but old does it via holy magic and swordsmanship in tandem, drk does it by managing blood and MP, war does it with mega berserk. Even if you gave all 3 identicle defensive CDs, they would still be distinct classes based on their offensive situations. There will be some homogenaztion necessary, but that's not a death sentence. Tanking I'm this game is really being a dps with bigger defensive stats and a few mitigation CDs. Dps are distinct as all get out and fairly well balanced. Tank dps ie also distinct and balanced. Let the mitigation and (lol) enmity be homogenized. Fine with me. The classes can still be different and fun.

Let's be real, hitting rampart before a tank buster isnt the reason we play tanks. So what if rampart is the same for everyone. Let them differentiate themselves the same way drg, nin, sam and mnk are different. On the rotationand offensive mechanic side. That is a lot more practical than creating yet another sub class the playerbase WILL find a way to break.

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I don't feel the homogenization argument really holds that much water. Over the course of my FFXIV career I've played all the tanks at their respective level caps, in most of the content available, and know from experience they all play very differently, and furthermore, that I am really only effective on one of them (obv War which is my main). You can paint a broad stroke and say "they all have rampart" "they all have provoke" "they all have an immunity" "they all have 3 combos" etc etc but it doesn't follow that a player can manage each as effectively, hence there isn't really the tangible homogenization that leads to stale gameplay. They all play differently, cooldowns align differently in each fight, you can't play one exactly the same as you play another. As long as they retain an identity in this form, the way they actually play, then one never needs to worry about homogenization. Now if they literally copied every single ability, well there's an argument to be had, but at that point we're talking about why is there even 3 (soon to be 4) different tanks if they are all cookie cutter copies of each other? That's unlikely to actually happen.

I think were agreeing. I'm rather ok with the idea floated that the base tank buster mitigation be homogenized. Were practically there (rampart, 30%CD). Moving all 3 immunities to be closer in duration and recast and moving on demand CDs slightly closer together (biggest offender being IB access and power more in line with tbn/shell). Then their defensive kits can be largely on par with their fluff adding some identity flair. War can keep HP up synergy. Pld can keep shield synergy. Drk can keep resource moving synergy to deal with the fluff.

At that point balance their kits around dps output. Se has a good track record with this through dps balance and current tank dps balance.

The shadowbringers rework need only address what tanks do when not actively tanking. Pld has a lockdown on this. It probably wouldnt hurt to trim that back and then provide drk/war with similar capabilities that still fit their theme.

Core defense and enmity kits dont really need to be vastly different. No one has really complained that all 3 tanks have a 3 step enmity combo. Or that they all use rampart. They have slowly edged shadowall and vengence closer. The world wont end of sentinel does the same.

Core CDs and enmity combos dont define any of the jobs, so homogenizing that aspect further wont hurt anyone or destroy uniqueness. But it will give a rock solid foundation for balance and preventing kings and poppers for an entire expac. Dps numbers always fall in line fairly quickly with some potency patches. Defense is half the balance battle. The rest is evening out the OT supoort kits.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Both are active mitigation effects, yes, but the way that they work is fundamentally different. Given that you'll normally be using them on a Tank to help soak a TB, Intervention wins out because it can be more powerful an effect with combination of other CD's. Whereas TBN is only ever 10% of DRK's max HP (Which will essentially be about equal to the other Tanks. Outside of WAR whom has HP boosts)

At base Intervention is still as potent as TBN (Multiplicative DR stacking aside at least)

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by that logic veil and Sio have to be categorized as diferent too, since they work complety diferent from each other.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Except this is how you unbalance things. For a long time WAR had higher DPS to account for lack of utility. How well did that turn out? Considering how you like to complain about how OP WAR has been for so long, you, of all people, should know how dangerous giving a Tank DPS in lieu of utility is for balance.

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i never care if WAR dealt more damage if it comes at the cost of utility, the problem that was never the case, WAR have all this time the best dps, holmgang doing his usual stuff and relevant utility, there is nothing bad or wrong if 1 tank have more dps at the cost of utility but WAR just have all of it there me and many others complaing about it.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

For all intents and purposes it is Holmgang that makes WAR the best MT. Defiance while defensively strong, is rarely used. Such is why people often mention that DRK is the current king of self mitigation because TBN is pretty effective in the meta where Tank Stances aren't used outside of the pull.

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mmm nope, holmgang trivialize certain fights so much and thats a problem yes, but WAR have pretty much universal toolkit, and defiance rules over the the rest tank stances, the fact is the only tank that can enjoy his tank stance in short amount of times with minimun dps lose is a strong point, PLD and DRK will have to eat his penalty no matter what and if we compare all tanks in tank stance WAR just win without even trying.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

It's honestly not hard to figure out some things. If I wanted to spend the time, I could even go through ability by ability and adjust numbers to achieve balance. I'm just not getting paid to do that.

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you should try to get in to yoship team then meaby he will hire you ^^

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Except there's much and more that can be utilized to create different feels.

For a start, DPS rotations are ALREADY major differences to playstyle. With WAR being all about maintaining Storm's Eye and gaming their Beast Gauge. With PLD alternating between maximizing Fight or Flight and using Requiescat. With DRK being all about managing MP to use Dark Arts to empower skills as well as weaving in oGCD attacks like Carve and Spit and managing Blood usage.

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i consider WAR and PLD being a copy paste, both have 1 combo they have to use at some time to refresh something, PLD a dot and WAR a buff, then its just spam the other combo "path and royal" until you need to refresh you dot/buff, PLD just need to fir 2 groing in Fight or Flight and WAR just trow an ocasiona fell cleave then the moment comes and its: requiem cast - holy spirit - holy spirit - holy spirit - holy spirit - holy spirit / inner release - fell cleave - fell cleave - fell cleave - fell cleave - fell cleave.

PLD its just more rigid that WAR.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Outside of that, there can be different flavours of the baseline CD's. For example, how Vengeance has the retaliation damage on it. How Sentinel is stronger but has a longer CD. So long as the baseline effect is the same across the board, tanks will be balanced even with little bonuses for flavour.

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vengeance its superior for his duration and recast, its not balanced and can't be balanced since you have to keep in mind ohter skills in each tank kit that help to have a better flow.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Then there's personal utility skills. Things like mobility from Plunge/Onslaught (Vs Tempered Will). There can be something like Interject/Low Blow that provides Tanks with a universal interrupt skill that ignores diminishing returns, each with having some class flavour (For example, DRK could get a shield if interrupting a spell. PLD could get a guaranteed block.)

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well with you logic that will be a imbalance, since PLD gets a dps gain with shield swipe except you want that being removed.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Things that aren't part of the "Core" tank role are flexible to be made unique or to be given in a variety of flavours to suit the Tank(s) that get it.

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i agree and that need to be enchanced but thats will have more limits with you sistem.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Well, this implies that the balance team is as invested and knowledgeable about Tanks as players. Often this is not the case (See: How literally every WHM saw how terrible the Lily mechanic was from the reveal and how years later, SE still haven't got a clue as to why the mechanic is such garbage)

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lily mechanic is not a balance problem bcs there is nothing to balance there, its just useless per see and dosent make WHM weaker, more having something useless in they screen.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

These are are actually more complex to balance, because their effects are of different strength.

It's why I don't particularly like them, because they're always going to be a nightmare to balance because of how vastly different each effect is for the same outcome (Not dying to a Tankbuster irregardless of the amount of damage it deals)

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they are not more complex to balance, the only problem is how much of this can you fit in a encounter? WAR can fit 2-3 more that PLD and DRK just balance the recast, its not so hard

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Cover and Intervention allows for a party to bypass some Tank Swaps. Since they don't need to actually swap the tank for the damage to be diverted away.

Meanwhile, TBN actually benefits you from tank swapping, because then it becomes 20% max HP instead of 10%. But this means that you're actually following the intended mechanics.

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there is no diference on use cover+intervetion with rampart or sentinel making you co-tank saves CDs and a tank swap where you eat the next TB so you co-tank save CDs, both requires CD managment its just a diferent way to do exactly the same, the diference is instead of use provoke+shirk you use cover+rampart.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

No, but you can get things pretty close, to the point that only hardcore min/maxers actually care about the differences.

Which is far better than forcing people to play specific comps because you can't be bothered to actually look at the issues behind the role.

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ppl force himself to play a certain comp the meta one, how many times ppl just din't reclute PLD in HW? how many times ppl din't want a DRK on SB? SWB its not going to be diferent if 2 tanks are just the best pll will not want the other 2, if they buff one and replace one in 1 spot then the other 2 complaing and we start over again.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

The thing is, there's so much more balancing that would need to be done in order to make sure that you actually have a "MT-OT barrier" and then in that barrier then also balancing the pairs so you don't just have WAR + PLD dominating the game still.

Meanwhile, as mentioned previously, there's not actually a whole lot that needs to be done to balance out all Tanks between each other, it's mostly just sorting out the glaring inequality between the tools they have. Simple.

Since, it shouldn't even erode their identity. Unless you're telling me that outside of the 1m lower cooldown on Holmgang and existence of Shake it Off that WAR and DRK play exactly the same?

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not at all, we are going to loose skills and get new ones pretty soon, its the perfect time to do that, the sinergy betwen tanks can change a lot, just remember 4.0, and its obviously are taking this in consideration with all the work that saves bcs its much much more simple have 2 tanks fighting for 1 spot that having 4 for just 2 spots.

nope not at all, but if DRK and WAR can pull the same number of invul in combat it will not matter what you bring, if utility have similar impact, and they mitigation and dps its on par then all is set, i dont see the dificulty here, i see it when you have to pkeep in mind 2 more tanks in the equation.

pd: i think we should considerate the wall texts we are building ^^

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Originally Posted by shao32

by that logic veil and Sio have to be categorized as diferent too, since they work complety diferent from each other.

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Not really. Both of them have roughly the same effect (10% of your max health as a shield from Divine Fail. 8% (+4% per buff consumed) target max health as a shield from SiO)

Baseline is Veil is stronger. But WAR can improve theirs to compete and be slightly better on the tank.

Either way though, these skills are often not used for their mitigation, but the LB they generate.

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Originally Posted by shao32

i never care if WAR dealt more damage if it comes at the cost of utility, the problem that was never the case, WAR have all this time the best dps, holmgang doing his usual stuff and relevant utility

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Relevant utility? Such as?

WAR's "Utility" has pretty much only consisted of Holmgang = better cheesing of TB's.

With SB bringing in Shake it Off as an AoE shield after WAR's asked for some utility.

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Originally Posted by shao32

the fact is the only tank that can enjoy his tank stance in short amount of times with minimun dps lose is a strong point, PLD and DRK will have to eat his penalty no matter what and if we compare all tanks in tank stance WAR just win without even trying.

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WAR's eat a significant penalty to use Defiance. Since it literally locks them out of their passive crit bonus and Fell Cleaves for 10 seconds.

To say nothing about how WAR's don't actually get any defensive benefit from their defensive stance unless they use Equilibrium or Inner Beast.

Also, when the game revolves around Tanks being in DPS stance 99.99% of the time this isn't even a big factor and in this scenario, both PLD and DRK are superior because their active mitigation (Sheltron and TBN) both work in DPS stance.

Again, this entire situation comes from the balance team not understanding the underlying cause of tank issues. Whereby they kept WAR being unique with its powerful, but stance locked, mitigation. But also tried to bring about homogeny so that WAR's could perma-DPS stance like PLD/DRK.

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Originally Posted by shao32

you should try to get in to yoship team then meaby he will hire you ^^

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I know this is a joke, however there's 2 pretty significant blockades to this:

1) My Japanese is not the greatest.

2) SE doesn't want to spend money on FFXIV, so why would they hire someone new? (Since, most of the games problems and limitation would be alleviated if SE spent more of the money that XIV makes actually on XIV instead of siphoning it away to churn out more XV DLC)

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Originally Posted by shao32

well with you logic that will be a imbalance, since PLD gets a dps gain with shield swipe except you want that being removed.

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But DRK also gains DPS through getting a shield and thus generating LB.

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Originally Posted by shao32

lily mechanic is not a balance problem bcs there is nothing to balance there, its just useless per see and dosent make WHM weaker, more having something useless in they screen.

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It's not an imbalance problem, but the balance team are the ones that work on developing skills and features for classes. The fact that after over 2 years, they still haven't realized what took players like 5 minutes to notice shows the disconnect they can have from roles they don't have interest in.

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Originally Posted by shao32

they are not more complex to balance, the only problem is how much of this can you fit in a encounter? WAR can fit 2-3 more that PLD and DRK just balance the recast, its not so hard

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They are. Since if they were all on equal CD, then PLD would be superior, because it outright prevents damage, meaning healers don't need to heal and can continue focusing on DPS.

If they were all on equal CD, then DRK would still be literally the worst, because the mechanics of Living Dead are complete trash.

Like, Hallowed Grounds longer CD is justified because its effect it just so much more potent, it is also more versatile as it prevents sustained damage from needing to be healed too (While Holm/LD only prevent death).

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Originally Posted by shao32

ppl force himself to play a certain comp the meta one

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Meta comps become prevalent in this game when there's a significant advantage gained over non-meta. Especially in PuG groups, if they start to enforce meta its usually because there's a significant difference between it and non-meta.

Otherwise, we can state that DRK is fine and in no need of any adjustments because they can still work and clear content. People just force themselves to play with WARs instead.

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Originally Posted by shao32

not at all, we are going to loose skills and get new ones pretty soon, its the perfect time to do that, the sinergy betwen tanks can change a lot, just remember 4.0, and its obviously are taking this in consideration with all the work that saves bcs its much much more simple have 2 tanks fighting for 1 spot that having 4 for just 2 spots.

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Except unless you address the underlying balance issues which are prevalent across the entire cast of Tanks, you'll end up setting up a scenario where its 2 tanks fighting for 2 spots because the other 2 are considered garbage in comparison to their "Partner".

If you do address the underlying balance issues, to allow for the 2 tanks in a sub-role to compete. Then you may as well just fix the role in its entirety so it becomes a case of "Bring the player, not the job"

Where you won't have "4 Tanks competing for 2 slots" but instead just have Tank players competing for the 2 spots and their preferred job being irrelevant outside of not stacking 2x the same Tank (Though, even that might still actually work, so long as there aren't non-stacking effects to consider)

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Not really. Both of them have roughly the same effect (10% of your max health as a shield from Divine Fail. 8% (+4% per buff consumed) target max health as a shield from SiO)

Baseline is Veil is stronger. But WAR can improve theirs to compete and be slightly better on the tank.

Either way though, these skills are often not used for their mitigation, but the LB they generate.

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excuse me but both shield mitigation are pretty usefull, its creates some extra safety, they are used for the mitigation and for the LB bcs its free mitigation for the party, please don't dismiss the value of free stuff specially if is usefull.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Relevant utility? Such as?

WAR's "Utility" has pretty much only consisted of Holmgang = better cheesing of TB's.

With SB bringing in Shake it Off as an AoE shield after WAR's asked for some utility.
Except unless you address the underlying balance issues which are prevalent across the entire cast of Tanks, you'll end up setting up a scenario where its 2 tanks fighting for 2 spots because the other 2 are considered garbage in comparison to their "Partner".

If you do address the underlying balance issues, to allow for the 2 tanks in a sub-role to compete. Then you may as well just fix the role in its entirety so it becomes a case of "Bring the player, not the job"

Where you won't have "4 Tanks competing for 2 slots" but instead just have Tank players competing for the 2 spots and their preferred job being irrelevant outside of not stacking 2x the same Tank (Though, even that might still actually work, so long as there aren't non-stacking effects to consider)

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what are you expecting? i mean not trying to sound rude but when i post this posibility its obviously that involves tank balance with the new skills and old ones to make each couple being equal in they capabilitys, it will take less effort do it in this way vs force every tank doing everything as you suggest to dont get indiscriminated, you can't put current DRK competing against PLD or WAR right now, meaby GUN, its obviously requre balance so no tank is indiscriminated.

i mean you argument works against you too, the most small thing can put ahead a tank over others, if 2 tanks works pretty well the other will cry in a corner except you make every tank do the same and i doubt you want do that, and with you opinions of the devs do you extecptem do it at you way and don't fail? they fail with 3, with 4 bet for it.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

WAR's eat a significant penalty to use Defiance. Since it literally locks them out of their passive crit bonus and Fell Cleaves for 10 seconds.

To say nothing about how WAR's don't actually get any defensive benefit from their defensive stance unless they use Equilibrium or Inner Beast.

Also, when the game revolves around Tanks being in DPS stance 99.99% of the time this isn't even a big factor and in this scenario, both PLD and DRK are superior because their active mitigation (Sheltron and TBN) both work in DPS stance.

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idk if you know this but WAR penalty in full tank stance its around 25% of damage lose compared to full dps stance uptime, same with DRK same with PLD, war dont loose more, and they can enjoy the defiance status that yes dont bring defense per se, but prevents death with more HP pool, it brings efective HP like grit and shield do, so the skill alone its equaly effective as grit and shield.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Again, this entire situation comes from the balance team not understanding the underlying cause of tank issues. Whereby they kept WAR being unique with its powerful, but stance locked, mitigation. But also tried to bring about homogeny so that WAR's could perma-DPS stance like PLD/DRK.

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and you expect then do the balance in you way?

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Originally Posted by Kalise

But DRK also gains DPS through getting a shield and thus generating LB.

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if it brings a shield that dont offers nothing it brings nothing, except you mean it brings a free TBN.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

They are. Since if they were all on equal CD, then PLD would be superior, because it outright prevents damage, meaning healers don't need to heal and can continue focusing on DPS.

If they were all on equal CD, then DRK would still be literally the worst, because the mechanics of Living Dead are complete trash.

Like, Hallowed Grounds longer CD is justified because its effect it just so much more potent, it is also more versatile as it prevents sustained damage from needing to be healed too (While Holm/LD only prevent death).

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if you put holmgang at 5 min you won't be able to do more that 2 of then so stays in the line with the other tanks, and living dead need a rework but we are tired of asking for it.

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Originally Posted by shao32

excuse me but both shield mitigation are pretty usefull, its creates some extra safety, they are used for the mitigation and for the LB bcs its free mitigation for the party, please don't dismiss the value of free stuff specially if is usefull.

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You mean like the free healing that everyone will receive because a healer will always be casting an AoE heal since these AoE shields from the tanks aren't going to stop them from needing to cast a heal?

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Originally Posted by shao32

what are you expecting? i mean not trying to sound rude but when i post this posibility its obviously that involves tank balance with the new skills and old ones to make each couple being equal in they capabilitys, it will take less effort do it in this way vs force every tank doing everything as you suggest to dont get indiscriminated, you can't put current DRK competing against PLD or WAR right now, meaby GUN, its obviously requre balance so no tank is indiscriminated.

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It's quite simple.

In your situation, you're trying to balance tanks in pairs, so they have equal capabilities. So that things like DPS, mitigation, enmity, utility are all equalized between them. Then you're advocating for each pair to be distinct from each other (In a way that wouldn't then cause people to force "Same sub-role" compositions, like they inevitably would) for some reason.

In my situation, it's just making the baseline things for Tanks, like DPS, mitigation, enmity and utility are all equalized because they're all given a specific core of abilities that let them perform their required role.

I don't want a particular job to be favoured because it arbitrarily has a better defensive CD so is better at cheesing Tankbusters. Nor do I want a particular job to be favoured because it's the only job in the role that has a set of utility skills.

Especially when much of these skills don't actually have any gameplay related to them. Like, when a Tankbuster comes, you press a CD (Or a couple of them). It doesn't matter if its Hallowed Ground, Holmgang, Shadow Wall, Vengeance, Rampart etc. The gameplay is the same. You press an oGCD button and you take the hit and don't die.

So... What's the purpose in creating imbalance by having a bunch of "Unique" CD's? If the gameplay is still the same irregardless, press a button > don't die > continue your rotation as normal.

Like, you mentioned about Vengeance being imbalanced... But honestly, how much is it? A tankbuster comes. A WAR presses Vengeance and a DRK presses Shadow Wall. Both take 30% less damage from this spike of damage. WAR deals an insignificant amount of damage back (If it was a physical attack. Then the rest of the duration no-one cares about because the boss goes back to auto attacks which aren't threatening anyway.

Thematically, Vengeance is cool because of the return damage. In practice, there aren't a lot of situations where it is relevant.

Once you get the core functionality of the role to a point where everyone is on equal footing, so everyone can mitigate TB's equally and everyone can provide something while "OT" (Or more accurately, while not actively tanking).

Then it's merely a matter of tuning numbers. Making sure that DPS remains roughly equal. That Enmity generation remains roughly equal.

After that point, you can do anything you want with the jobs to make them feel unique. So long as they all can perform their duties equally, they'll all be viable no matter what you do with them, much like how DPS are quite varied in playstyle and still can perform their function within an acceptable margin of one another.

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Originally Posted by shao32

i mean you argument works against you too, the most small thing can put ahead a tank over others, if 2 tanks works pretty well the other will cry in a corner except you make every tank do the same and i doubt you want do that, and with you opinions of the devs do you extecptem do it at you way and don't fail? they fail with 3, with 4 bet for it.

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Well, it's all down to whether the devs see the issues or not.

When all is said and done, it's pretty simple to create tank equality. The hard part is tuning the numbers for DPS, but they've already done that bit.

They just need to take the step to create proper equality between tanks when performing their role. Rather than taking the option to intentionally create imbalance within the role by forcing "MT" and "OT" designs (Especially when their view of the jobs roles are heavily skewed so they consider PLD a MT and WAR and OT)

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Originally Posted by shao32

idk if you know this but WAR penalty in full tank stance its around 25% of damage lose compared to full dps stance uptime, same with DRK same with PLD, war dont loose more

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1) You're the one who mentioned WAR having "Minimal DPS loss" to use Defiance. Which is not the case, even with Unchained, you lose out on a TON of crit chance.

2) WAR loses the 5% bonus damage from Deliverance, 5-10% crit chance from Deliverance and takes the 20% damage down from Defiance.

PLD loses their 75 potency hit on their AA's and takes only a 15% damage down from Shield Oath.

DRK loses 24% damage from Grit (Due to how multiplicative damage modifiers work, thus with Darkside and Grit damage modifiers you end up at 96% of base damage as opposed to 120% of base damage)

WAR loses the most when entering Defiance, not even accounting for the DPS loss that is expending Gauge on Inner Beast instead of Fell Cleave. The upside is once per 90 seconds they can use Unchained to remove the damage down from Defiance.

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Originally Posted by shao32

they can enjoy the defiance status that yes dont bring defense per se, but prevents death with more HP pool, it brings efective HP like grit and shield do, so the skill alone its equaly effective as grit and shield.

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It only brings EHP if you get healed. If you don't get healed, you have exactly the same EHP as before you entered Defiance. Whereas PLD/DRK both instantly get their 20% damage reduction upon entering their tank stances. No need for them to pop a CD like Equilibrium, or to receive a heal from healers.

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Originally Posted by shao32

and you expect then do the balance in you way?

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Expect? No.

Hope? Yes.

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Originally Posted by shao32

if you put holmgang at 5 min you won't be able to do more that 2 of then so stays in the line with the other tanks, and living dead need a rework but we are tired of asking for it.

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Except it doesn't work that way.

If Holmgang was at 5 minutes, now everyone will be running DRK because Living Dead is 4 minutes CD so they can use it more frequently.

If all these skills were on 5 minute CD's, then everyone would be running PLD because Hallowed Ground is outright the strongest effect.

That's the issue with these skills, they are inherently unbalanced and people will always end up finding a situation where one of them will be superior, either because of its CD making it more available (Such is the case with Holmgang having 1 minute shorter CD than Living Dead) or because the effect being stronger (Such is the case with Hallowed Ground completely preventing incoming damage with no drawbacks)

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Originally Posted by Kalise

If Holmgang was at 5 minutes, now everyone will be running DRK because Living Dead is 4 minutes CD so they can use it more frequently.

If all these skills were on 5 minute CD's, then everyone would be running PLD because Hallowed Ground is outright the strongest effect.

That's the issue with these skills, they are inherently unbalanced and people will always end up finding a situation where one of them will be superior, either because of its CD making it more available (Such is the case with Holmgang having 1 minute shorter CD than Living Dead) or because the effect being stronger (Such is the case with Hallowed Ground completely preventing incoming damage with no drawbacks)

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Living Dead is 300s or 5 minutes CD. It will be a wash at that point comparing only ultimates (Holm needs a target and lasts 6s, LD needs Full heal, lasts longer and is dispellable). The deciding factor will be DRK's overall mitigation outside of said "ultimate" is higher whereas WAR will be a very very gimped PLD that doesn't have Hallowed nor Sheltron.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

You mean like the free healing that everyone will receive because a healer will always be casting an AoE heal since these AoE shields from the tanks aren't going to stop them from needing to cast a heal?

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its free just use it and enjoy it, necesary meaby not meaby yes, but they still are there, they still are usefull just use it.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

It's quite simple.

In your situation, you're trying to balance tanks in pairs, so they have equal capabilities. So that things like DPS, mitigation, enmity, utility are all equalized between them. Then you're advocating for each pair to be distinct from each other (In a way that wouldn't then cause people to force "Same sub-role" compositions, like they inevitably would) for some reason.

In my situation, it's just making the baseline things for Tanks, like DPS, mitigation, enmity and utility are all equalized because they're all given a specific core of abilities that let them perform their required role.

I don't want a particular job to be favoured because it arbitrarily has a better defensive CD so is better at cheesing Tankbusters. Nor do I want a particular job to be favoured because it's the only job in the role that has a set of utility skills.

Especially when much of these skills don't actually have any gameplay related to them. Like, when a Tankbuster comes, you press a CD (Or a couple of them). It doesn't matter if its Hallowed Ground, Holmgang, Shadow Wall, Vengeance, Rampart etc. The gameplay is the same. You press an oGCD button and you take the hit and don't die.

So... What's the purpose in creating imbalance by having a bunch of "Unique" CD's? If the gameplay is still the same irregardless, press a button > don't die > continue your rotation as normal.

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its simple only 1 pair will have aoe shields for example, the other can have other stuff, things like that, i dint say any moment 1 pair mitigating better or cheesing better TB at all, it will create diversity, not like all tanks being able to do the same.

and idk why you consider the MT-OT comps are going to fail and ppl will bring double whatever without considering or going deep of what can be have to prevent this.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Like, you mentioned about Vengeance being imbalanced... But honestly, how much is it? A tankbuster comes. A WAR presses Vengeance and a DRK presses Shadow Wall. Both take 30% less damage from this spike of damage. WAR deals an insignificant amount of damage back (If it was a physical attack. Then the rest of the duration no-one cares about because the boss goes back to auto attacks which aren't threatening anyway.

Thematically, Vengeance is cool because of the return damage. In practice, there aren't a lot of situations where it is relevant.

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vengeance is strong but i say too that's irrelevant bcs its just a piece of the overall kit, so yeah vengeance is the best of the 3 but that dosen't mean its imbalance since its the overall mitigation kit performance that matters, but shadow wall sucks before the buff all being said.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Once you get the core functionality of the role to a point where everyone is on equal footing, so everyone can mitigate TB's equally and everyone can provide something while "OT" (Or more accurately, while not actively tanking).

Then it's merely a matter of tuning numbers. Making sure that DPS remains roughly equal. That Enmity generation remains roughly equal.

After that point, you can do anything you want with the jobs to make them feel unique. So long as they all can perform their duties equally, they'll all be viable no matter what you do with them, much like how DPS are quite varied in playstyle and still can perform their function within an acceptable margin of one another.

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i agree all jobs need to archive similar performance on every content i dint say other thing, its hard to talk about MT-OT when everyone have a diferent mental idea of what this means, but to be clear im more into when yoshi speak about this means more like everyone will be equal on basic duty but will have 2 diferent sets of utility and other stuff there MT-OT witch i find ok but its not sure yet so.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Well, it's all down to whether the devs see the issues or not.

When all is said and done, it's pretty simple to create tank equality. The hard part is tuning the numbers for DPS, but they've already done that bit.

They just need to take the step to create proper equality between tanks when performing their role. Rather than taking the option to intentionally create imbalance within the role by forcing "MT" and "OT" designs (Especially when their view of the jobs roles are heavily skewed so they consider PLD a MT and WAR and OT)

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tank equality dont exist, you can't make every tank do the same, for that dont add new tanks.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

1) You're the one who mentioned WAR having "Minimal DPS loss" to use Defiance. Which is not the case, even with Unchained, you lose out on a TON of crit chance.

2) WAR loses the 5% bonus damage from Deliverance, 5-10% crit chance from Deliverance and takes the 20% damage down from Defiance.

PLD loses their 75 potency hit on their AA's and takes only a 15% damage down from Shield Oath.

DRK loses 24% damage from Grit (Due to how multiplicative damage modifiers work, thus with Darkside and Grit damage modifiers you end up at 96% of base damage as opposed to 120% of base damage)

WAR loses the most when entering Defiance, not even accounting for the DPS loss that is expending Gauge on Inner Beast instead of Fell Cleave. The upside is once per 90 seconds they can use Unchained to remove the damage down from Defiance.

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WAR is the only tank that can use unchained and enjoy 10 seconds of tank stance and equilibirum with minimun cost, PLD and DRK will just waste resources a entire oGCD the second they do that and WAR can save his fell cleave until come back to deliverance (if you empty you gauge first of course) and make his principal source of dps stay intact, i can't archive the same with DRK.

second you complety miss upheaval do more damage on defiance, WAR still have unchained so they mitigate more the total of dps lose, and inner beast ignore the 20% damage penalty, i will encourage to make a test if you want, WAR don't loose more dps that the other 2 i tank stance.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

It only brings EHP if you get healed. If you don't get healed, you have exactly the same EHP as before you entered Defiance. Whereas PLD/DRK both instantly get their 20% damage reduction upon entering their tank stances. No need for them to pop a CD like Equilibrium, or to receive a heal from healers.

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oh god lord, you have equilibrium for that, its free, its 60 seconds recast and heal you missing heal, please enjoy the sinergy betwen defiance and equilibrium, you dont need a healer at all.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Except it doesn't work that way.

If Holmgang was at 5 minutes, now everyone will be running DRK because Living Dead is 4 minutes CD so they can use it more frequently.

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living dead: 300s recast, 60x5=300.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

If all these skills were on 5 minute CD's, then everyone would be running PLD because Hallowed Ground is outright the strongest effect.

That's the issue with these skills, they are inherently unbalanced and people will always end up finding a situation where one of them will be superior, either because of its CD making it more available (Such is the case with Holmgang having 1 minute shorter CD than Living Dead) or because the effect being stronger (Such is the case with Hallowed Ground completely preventing incoming damage with no drawbacks)

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PLD can stay on 7 min coldown since the nature of the skill, living dead its already 5 min, and only have barely 1 use more that PLD depending of the fight so 5 min for holmgang its perfect.

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Originally Posted by shao32

its free just use it and enjoy it, necesary meaby not meaby yes, but they still are there, they still are usefull just use it.

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Yes, I use it.

But to generate LB. If it didn't generate extra LB, there'd be no reason to use them (Especially Divine Fail which actually requires a heal to be cast in order to activate the shield in the first place)

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Originally Posted by shao32

its simple only 1 pair will have aoe shields for example, the other can have other stuff, things like that, i dint say any moment 1 pair mitigating better or cheesing better TB at all, it will create diversity, not like all tanks being able to do the same.

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But now you're opening up the idea where if one pair has AoE shields, the other pair needs something that brings what the AoE shields do. Otherwise people will try and run both the AoE shield tanks because that's how you generate more LB and more LB = more DPS.

If you then balance the other pair so that they have something equivalent to the AoE shields... Then congratulations, you've literally just employed the balancing of all 4 tanks around a similar level of utility :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by shao32

idk why you consider the MT-OT comps are going to fail and ppl will bring double whatever without considering or going deep of what can be have to prevent this.

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Because history shows that people will do what they need to in order to get the best DPS output.

This includes things like tanking things in DPS stance because the DPS gained from the Tank > the DPS lost from the Healer having to heal more.

The only ways to prevent these scenarios is by FORCING these sub-roles to be necessary. Which is a great way to literally destroy any and all 8 man content in the Duty Finder, by making the least popular role now be split between "MT" and "OT" sub-roles where one of each is mandatory.

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Originally Posted by shao32

tank equality dont exist, you can't make every tank do the same, for that dont add new tanks.

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You can easily make tank equality. By just removing the inequal parts of their kits that divide them based on how well they can perform the same role.

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Originally Posted by shao32

WAR is the only tank that can use unchained and enjoy 10 seconds of tank stance and equilibirum with minimun cost, PLD and DRK will just waste resources a entire oGCD the second they do that and WAR can save his fell cleave until come back to deliverance (if you empty you gauge first of course) and make his principal source of dps stay intact, i can't archive the same with DRK.

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1) Yes, WAR can use Unchained. I specifically even mentioned that. Outside of Unchained, WAR loses the most damage to be in Tank stance.

2) I'm still curious about what situation we're talking about with Tank stances actually being used. Since most of the time, they're only used for the pull. In which case, DRK is competitive with WAR because it can generate enmity quickly (With DA Plunge/DA Dark Passenger. To be honest, I've been using a lot of DA Power Slash recently because it generates TONS of enmity for all of 1 lacklustre damage combo into an instant oGCD removal of grit)

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Originally Posted by shao32

second you complety miss upheaval do more damage on defiance, WAR still have unchained so they mitigate more the total of dps lose, and inner beast ignore the 20% damage penalty, i will encourage to make a test if you want, WAR don't loose more dps that the other 2 i tank stance.

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Again, in what context are we comparing these things?

Upheaval? I'll save that for when I'm in Deliverance and using Inner Release thanks.

Unchained? Yes, that exists. But why, outside of the pull, would I want to be in Defiance?

Inner Beast? It ignores the damage penalty, but it's still less potency than Fell Cleave. IB is 350 potency, FC is 520 (That's a 33% damage loss per IB used instead of a FC). Why would I spend my gauge on Inner Beast?

Also, why do I want to be in Tank stance to begin with? On ANY Tank? Outside of the pull where its extra enmity is useful, what reason is there? Especially for non-WAR tanks whom have their active mitigation skills (Sheltron and TBN) available in DPS stance?

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Originally Posted by shao32

oh god lord, you have equilibrium for that, its free, its 60 seconds recast and heal you missing heal, please enjoy the sinergy betwen defiance and equilibrium, you dont need a healer at all.

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If you read, I specifically mentioned that PLD and DRK don't have to use ANY COOLDOWNS OR HAVE A HEALER in order to benefit from their defensive stances.

Telling me "Lul just use Equilibrium" doesn't mean that I get free benefit from my tank stance because I had to use my Equilibrium CD in order to get the passive benefit from my stance. To say nothing about the fact that if I'm not at full health, Equilibrium doesn't necessarily even bring me to a point where the bonus max health from Defiance is actually being used.

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Originally Posted by shao32

living dead: 300s recast, 60x5=300.

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So it is. My bad. Don't know why I was thinking 4 minutes.

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Originally Posted by shao32

PLD can stay on 7 min coldown since the nature of the skill, living dead its already 5 min, and only have barely 1 use more that PLD depending of the fight so 5 min for holmgang its perfect.

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Except that Holmgang would still be preferred over Living Dead 100% of the time. Due to the trash mechanics from Living Dead (Well... Maybe if we got some more encounters that had Tankbusters after untargetable phases then LD would be favoured)

Since that's part of what makes these skills unbalanceable. It's not only their duration and CD, but also their actual effects to consider.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Yes, I use it.

But to generate LB. If it didn't generate extra LB, there'd be no reason to use them (Especially Divine Fail which actually requires a heal to be cast in order to activate the shield in the first place)

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You don't raid don't you? Only a person that don't do savage will say that, the shield mitigation it's really really helpful, omega, final omega godka, neoexdeath are just one of the examples of heavy raid damage, I saw you don't put a foot on those fights at least with that character but those shields are more that just LB builders and sorry if this sound a bit rude but if you don't use all you available tools to help you party you are playing wrong this game in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

but now you're opening up the idea where if one pair has AoE shields, the other pair needs something that brings what the AoE shields do. Otherwise people will try and run both the AoE shield tanks because that's how you generate more LB and more LB = more DPS.

If you then balance the other pair so that they have something equivalent to the AoE shields... Then congratulations, you've literally just employed the balancing of all 4 tanks around a similar level of utility :rolleyes:

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Excuse me but I think I was clear when I saw this kind of balance being a theorical think it will have something, mandatory unstackeable buffs or whatever to make the MT-OT combo the most optimal choice so there will be no limit on what the other couple should and shouldn't have.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Because history shows that people will do what they need to in order to get the best DPS output.

This includes things like tanking things in DPS stance because the DPS gained from the Tank > the DPS lost from the Healer having to heal more.

The only ways to prevent these scenarios is by FORCING these sub-roles to be necessary. Which is a great way to literally destroy any and all 8 man content in the Duty Finder, by making the least popular role now be split between "MT" and "OT" sub-roles where one of each is mandatory.

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Yes they do, but tanks abuse of tanking on DPS stance BCS tank stance is badly designed, and if you are a good tank and use you tools properly they don't make his healers have to heal more.

Yes that's what I say but not so exaggerated as you claim to be, having both tanks from the same couple will be less efficient not impossible, there is a big difference and it doesn't destroy anything, I get in infinity duty finder party's that bring 2 SCH or 2 WHM and it wasn't the end of the world since this game is easy in 99% of the content.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

You can easily make tank equality. By just removing the inequal parts of their kits that divide them based on how well they can perform the same role.

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Well we can make a list then:
-tank stances
-selfhealing
-snap agro
-movility
-fluff mitigation
-invulnerabilitys
-dps of course
-utility

I can continue, we have plenty of holes to cover that balanced metod

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Originally Posted by Kalise

1) Yes, WAR can use Unchained. I specifically even mentioned that. Outside of Unchained, WAR loses the most damage to be in Tank stance.

2) I'm still curious about what situation we're talking about with Tank stances actually being used. Since most of the time, they're only used for the pull. In which case, DRK is competitive with WAR because it can generate enmity quickly (With DA Plunge/DA Dark Passenger. To be honest, I've been using a lot of DA Power Slash recently because it generates TONS of enmity for all of 1 lacklustre damage combo into an instant oGCD removal of grit)

Again, in what context are we comparing these things?

Upheaval? I'll save that for when I'm in Deliverance and using Inner Release thanks.

Unchained? Yes, that exists. But why, outside of the pull, would I want to be in Defiance?

Inner Beast? It ignores the damage penalty, but it's still less potency than Fell Cleave. IB is 350 potency, FC is 520 (That's a 33% damage loss per IB used instead of a FC). Why would I spend my gauge on Inner Beast?

Also, why do I want to be in Tank stance to begin with? On ANY Tank? Outside of the pull where its extra enmity is useful, what reason is there? Especially for non-WAR tanks whom have their active mitigation skills (Sheltron and TBN) available in DPS stance?

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In none, it's just a comparation of tanks performance, is a fact that WAR have the highest peak of performance on full tank stance compared to the other 2 in tank stance, it's not consider useful BCS the meta but it doesn't change the fact WAR can archive this and the other 2 not.

You ignored complete how WAR kit works in defiance, in full defiance gameplay using you skills in the optimal way like you will play in deliverance will make WAR damage penalty result to be a 25% of DPS less compared to deliverance DPS.

This is the same for DRK and PLD, despite the test of DRK are a bit more harder to make since you can't calculate blood price returns against a dummy, with approx calculations it's ends with a lose of 25% of his DPS more or less too.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

If you read, I specifically mentioned that PLD and DRK don't have to use ANY COOLDOWNS OR HAVE A HEALER in order to benefit from their defensive stances.

Telling me "Lul just use Equilibrium" doesn't mean that I get free benefit from my tank stance because I had to use my Equilibrium CD in order to get the passive benefit from my stance. To say nothing about the fact that if I'm not at full health, Equilibrium doesn't necessarily even bring me to a point where the bonus max health from Defiance is actually being used.

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Excuse me but I have to eat 1/3 of dark arts witch is a 43.3 potency wasted and a entire off global coldown to activate grit, I will kill for a CD that reduce all that to zero like WAR and I bet all PLDs will say the same, equilibrium it's stay there taking dust until you enter on defiance, WAR exceed all tanks in mitigation under defiance, just press the button.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Except that Holmgang would still be preferred over Living Dead 100% of the time. Due to the trash mechanics from Living Dead (Well... Maybe if we got some more encounters that had Tankbusters after untargetable phases then LD would be favoured)

Since that's part of what makes these skills unbalanceable. It's not only their duration and CD, but also their actual effects to consider.

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That's assuming living dead will stay the same in 5.0, we don't know how are the definitive kits of each tank to make assumptions like that yet, let's just assume any change to accommodate any of our theorys can be possible.

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Originally Posted by shao32

You don't raid don't you? Only a person that don't do savage will say that, the shield mitigation it's really really helpful,

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It's the other way around mate.. Only people that don't optimize think shields actually are helpful outside of generating LB. lol

You calculate these things with Healing GCD costs.

1- Divine Veil ALREADY costs a GCD to activate. But if healers are ALREADY topping people off before AoE, Veil is already useless.

2- Even with Veil + SiO, AoEs WILL break the shields (they are not that strong really) and healers will heal again to top people off.

The scenarios where Veil and SiO actually completely prevent raid busters are where content is no longer relevant and then optimization is no longer relevant either.

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Originally Posted by shao32

In none, it's just a comparation of tanks performance, is a fact that WAR have the highest peak of performance on full tank stance compared to the other 2 in tank stance, it's not consider useful BCS the meta but it doesn't change the fact WAR can archive this and the other 2 not.

You ignored complete how WAR kit works in defiance, in full defiance gameplay using you skills in the optimal way like you will play in deliverance will make WAR damage penalty result to be a 25% of DPS less compared to deliverance DPS.

This is the same for DRK and PLD, despite the test of DRK are a bit more harder to make since you can't calculate blood price returns against a dummy, with approx calculations it's ends with a lose of 25% of his DPS more or less too.

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It's actually more than 25% for WAR. You go from 105% to 80% AND lose Fell Cleave for the 33% weaker IB. It's close to 31% loss. Unchained won't fix that because your IR burst won't be affected by Unchained since IB already ignores Defiance penalty. Again, each FC replaced by IB is a 33% loss on that GCD. Upheaval is 1 ability. The HP from Defiance makes it do the 5% less than Deliverance since you lose that 5% bonus.

As for DRK, Blood Price mana return is PITIFUL. You don't use it for the MP return, you use it for the blood and you get 20 gauge/usage. You also lose Bloodweapon. Only saving grace for Grit DRK is Blood Spiller ignoring most of the stance penalty.

Sword Oath is is 10% of PLD's DPS (13% increase from base), Shield Oath penalizing us by -15% DPS is a 25% DPS loss.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

It's the other way around mate.. Only people that don't optimize think shields actually are helpful outside of generating LB. lol

You calculate these things with Healing GCD costs.

1- Divine Veil ALREADY costs a GCD to activate. But if healers are ALREADY topping people off before AoE, Veil is already useless.

2- Even with Veil + SiO, AoEs WILL break the shields (they are not that strong really) and healers will heal again to top people off.

The scenarios where Veil and SiO actually completely prevent raid busters are where content is no longer relevant and then optimization is no longer relevant either.

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Well probably it's you that enjoy having the entire party HP more empty that full, I'm not one of those and none on my raid like that too so any help to improve the safety of the raid it's a welcome and pleasant feeling.

Apart of that not every raid have perfect healers that mitigate perfectly, specially for all those ppl that go in to savage with pugs any help it's just welcome.

I'm glad you have amazing healers that make you think veil and Sio are not useful as shields plus not need it, but I stay in the opinion that more free safety=better specially if it's just require to push a button.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

It's actually more than 25% for WAR. You go from 105% to 80% AND lose Fell Cleave for the 33% weaker IB. It's close to 31% loss. Unchained won't fix that because your IR burst won't be affected by Unchained since IB already ignores Defiance penalty. Again, each FC replaced by IB is a 33% loss on that GCD. Upheaval is 1 ability. The HP from Defiance makes it do the 5% less than Deliverance since you lose that 5% bonus.

As for DRK, Blood Price mana return is PITIFUL. You don't use it for the MP return, you use it for the blood and you get 20 gauge/usage. You also lose Bloodweapon. Only saving grace for Grit DRK is Blood Spiller ignoring most of the stance penalty.

Sword Oath is is 10% of PLD's DPS (13% increase from base), Shield Oath penalizing us by -15% DPS is a 25% DPS loss.

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i make a test since i know you want proofs and this is my result.

after make a optimal rotation (infuriate on coldown, gauge over 50 for the crit, all gauge skills on inner release, ect) of 3 min with WAR (non optimal gear) i manage to dealt 5022 of dps, and then i did the same with defiance adapting unchained and upheaval gains to my rotation and i was able to dealt 3745 of dps.

3745 ÷ 5022 x 100= 74,5718837
74,57 -100 = 25,43 % of damage less compared to deliverance.

To be frank, you make some poor assumptions in your OP that simply wouldn't be the case, and thus worry about nothing really.

1) Just because a tank is considered a MT, wouldn't take away aggro generation from other tanks.
2) Just because a tank is considered a MT, doesn't mean mitigation is taken away from other tanks.
3) They are doing complete reworks of the battle system, so we can't make any assumptions about accessories because we have no idea how they are changing stats.

I think, OP, you are creating problems to worry about. SE devs aren't stupid. They aren't going to gimp OTs so they can't be MTs. In fact, every tank will be able to MT. Simply two of them will be more suited for the purpose.

For example, PLD has Cover, which (along with a few other things) make it more suitable for OT, since he can support the MT while still being in damage mode. Having Cover doesn't take any abilities away from the other tanks currently.

I'm sorry, I'm late to the discussion and thought the op was generally observing that players will be players and will optimise their tanks based on "the most suitable" (most efficient for clear, usually equalling fastest). This potentially benches a minimum of 2 "tanks" but theoretically up to three in progression raiding.

This may not be the case for you and your own raiding group. If you prefer the extra mitigation that's fine. I know I do, from experiences outside ff14 and wonder why tanks have defensive stances if they only use them on the pull. In this instance it makes sense just to bake the extra enmity into the pulling ability and lose the stances.

I personally just cringe at the word choice, though the thought of SE implementing a paradigm is always... concerning. Tanks as they are now aren't broken, people like a given tank or not primarily based on gameplay since the merits to each aren't exactly life-changing. Attempting to enforce something to make the choice restrictive is just kinda blah. There are different ways of reinforcing the concept of an 'MT' or 'OT', and some of them are more intrusive than others, but really I'd rather SE just made Gunbreaker and made it fun, then let us decide.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

I personally just cringe at the word choice, though the thought of SE implementing a paradigm is always... concerning. Tanks as they are now aren't broken, people like a given tank or not primarily based on gameplay since the merits to each aren't exactly life-changing. Attempting to enforce something to make the choice restrictive is just kinda blah. There are different ways of reinforcing the concept of an 'MT' or 'OT', and some of them are more intrusive than others, but really I'd rather SE just made Gunbreaker and made it fun, then let us decide.

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They aren't going to enforce anything to make the choice restrictive. Simply two tanks will be "the best" for MT, and two will be "the best" for OT. As in my example above, Cover is one of the things that makes PLD the current go-to OT. That doesn't mean it CAN'T MT. Just that it's better in the OT role than a WAR is.

I don't understand why they use the "we add another tank because MT & OT imbalance" excuse to add a tank job. I play on JP server and we have no issue with any tank job MT & OT.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

They aren't going to enforce anything to make the choice restrictive. Simply two tanks will be "the best" for MT, and two will be "the best" for OT. As in my example above, Cover is one of the things that makes PLD the current go-to OT. That doesn't mean it CAN'T MT. Just that it's better in the OT role than a WAR is.

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4 tanks, 12 combinations of MT/OT. Complete freedom of choice.
4 tanks, 2 'MT', 2 'OT' sub classes. 4 combinations of MT/OT that are actually decent. Crap choice.

Thats a complete deletion of player choice. That is INCREDIBLY restrictive. Have you been playing this or any other MMO? If a job is significantly more effective at a position it will lock down that position. Just because a Pld 'can' tank the boss and a war 'can' hit it from the side is irrelivant. Players do not accept that now when the jobs are not explicitly designed for niches. That will just get exponentially worse if tanks are actively designed for this subset of a role.

The status quo doesn't leave much room for choice, either. Slashing forces most groups to run a WAR. Stormblood was supposedly built around the mindset that "every tank should be able to do everything", but this has been preferentially applied at best.

This game is supposedly designed around two tanks. If your tank can "do it all", there's no point in a second tank. I would be in favour of every tank having some deficit in their kit, leaving some slack that their co-tank can pick up. At the very least, it represents a change, and anything is better than the attempts at "balance" that we've had through Heavensward and Stormblood.

Any tank is good, depends on player skill, making tanks "easier" only makes the job more boring, we need more to do, not less.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The status quo doesn't leave much room for choice, either. Slashing forces most groups to run a WAR. Stormblood was supposedly built around the mindset that "every tank should be able to do everything", but this has been preferentially applied at best.

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Well obviously. Stating that I dont want two sub classes of tanks officially designed is not the same thing as being fine with the current status quo tanking dynamic. The fact that the situation isnt perfect now doesnt mean we should make it worse. Though slashing is hardly the reason people prefer warrior. Since you are plainly referencing Meta Comps (otherwise Drk is perfectly acceptable), then you have to include ninja which negates the overhyped slashing. And if you arent talking about meta comps, then there are TWO out of 4 melees that bring slashing to the table. It is quite uncommon to require a warrior for slashing. Besides that I have on multiple occasions stated that all damage specefic, 100% uptime buffs should just be deleted as they are utterly pointless at best (3 sources of slashing) and RESTRICT PARTY CHOICE at worst (Read: Drg+brd). You can take the slashing debuff away, I'd welcome it as it would support my desire for wider party choice.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This game is supposedly designed around two tanks. If your tank can "do it all", there's no point in a second tank. I would be in favour of every tank having some deficit in their kit, leaving some slack that their co-tank can pick up. At the very least, it represents a change, and anything is better than the attempts at "balance" that we've had through Heavensward and Stormblood.

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You have always clung to the idea that one tank must have a deficit somewhere to 'create' space for someone else. I fundamentally reject that notion and in fact see it as a direct path to greater imbalance as one deficit will be 'less' detrimental than another and 1 strength will always be 'more' beneficial. Classic example is HW pld vs HW warrior. HW pld strength was party support with 'deficit' in damage. War was the opposite. Playerbase strongly preferred 1 strength (DPS) and gave no Fs about Pld's support strength. Its a recipe for failure and has been proven so in any game that implemented it. At best, it creates a situtation where specific jobs are good at specific encounters. At worst it deletes some jobs from use broadly. If both warrior and Pld had similar damage, similar support, then they would both be playable. And that is before we add in playerbase trying to break the system by finding a way to do 2 MT or 2 OT combos to, again, leverage the strengths they desire and ignore the weaknesses they dont care about.

There is no way to delete the meta. There will always be a slightly more optimal combo, but we can be sure the difference between meta and non-meta comps is measured in inches, not miles. Building in weaknesses guarantees it wont be inches.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

You have always clung to the idea that one tank must have a deficit somewhere to 'create' space for someone else. I fundamentally reject that notion and in fact see it as a direct path to greater imbalance as one deficit will be 'less' detrimental than another and 1 strength will always be 'more' beneficial. Classic example is HW pld vs HW warrior. HW pld strength was party support with 'deficit' in damage. War was the opposite. Playerbase strongly preferred 1 strength (DPS) and gave no Fs about Pld's support strength. Its a recipe for failure and has been proven so in any game that implemented it. At best, it creates a situtation where specific jobs are good at specific encounters. At worst it deletes some jobs from use broadly. If both warrior and Pld had similar damage, similar support, then they would both be playable. And that is before we add in playerbase trying to break the system by finding a way to do 2 MT or 2 OT combos to, again, leverage the strengths they desire and ignore the weaknesses they dont care about.

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the problem of HW is that was in theory, but in reality WAR have the best support of the expansion too, with having the most reliable at costless source of slashing debuff and the best defensive buff with storm path, PLD just wasn't able to compete against that so all his support was consider trash.

It's more than a notion. It's a fundamental part of game design. Every job needs to have strengths and weaknesses. If you can do everything on one job, why play anything else?

The devs tried to balance Heavensward around the erroneous idea that WAR was a purely offensive tank while PLD was more defensive. In fact, since 2.1, WAR has had and still has the strongest defensive toolkit. You swapped PLD or DRK depending on the fight, but you could always rely on WAR to be able to mitigate everything, while doing the highest dps.

The problem that we're having is that the devs seem to throw in new actions to expand WAR's capabilities without actually going back to look at how the skillset is balanced as a whole. The power balance shifts, but never changes. It's good to have reasons to bring a WAR. But you also need reasons to not bring a WAR. That's how you get diversity. That's how you get choice. And in fairness, that's how the other two tanks work.

It is a fundamental part of game design.

But you are looking far to narrowly. A tank that can generate enmity, mitigate damage, and deal damage (less than a dps), and support the party in some minor capacity (shields, TBN, etc) isnnt a 'jack of all trades' job. Its a tank. It has weaknesses because its not as good at healing as a healer. Its not as good at damage as a DPS. Tanks already have deficits in that other roles do other things better. They have strengths in that they tank better. You are right it is game design, but that is the purpose of the triad. Its already built in.

You dont need to keep subdividing further. Any other differences only purpose are purely to have unique jobs that are fun to play. War is bursty, Pld is sustained damage. But they do the same damage. One doesnt need to do more damage and then give up defense or support to compensate. Even if (hypothetically) warrior was a more sustained dps class like pld they can both occupy that space as pld will do it with magic and shield procs to stay feeling pld and war could still do it with gauge and FCs. One doesnt have to 'give up' sustained damage to 'make space' for the other. They can coexist and just be different flavors. But that concept has routinely eluded you for months.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

War is bursty, Pld is sustained damage. But they do the same damage.

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And that is actually imbalanced. Burst damage is better for damage checks and makes better use of party buffs. When the tank with the sustained damage doesn't make overall more damage over a long fight than the tank with the burst damage, then there is no point in bringing the tank with the sustained damage. You just lose out on the ability to burst through damage checks.

So either give the tank without burst damage more damage overall, or something else like better defense or better party support.

In other words: WAR is actually better in sustained AND burst damage than PLD.

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Originally Posted by Tint

And that is actually imbalanced. Burst damage is better for damage checks and makes better use of party buffs. When the tank with the sustained damage doesn't make overall more damage over a long fight than the tank with the burst damage, then there is no point in bringing the tank with the sustained damage. You just lose out on the ability to burst through damage checks.

So either give the tank without burst damage more damage overall, or something else like better defense or better party support.

In other words: WAR is actually better in sustained AND burst damage than PLD.

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You are completely missing the point. The topic in question is about the benefits or lack of benefits in splitting tanks into additional sub roles, not a referendum on the current balance right this second. If war is doing 'to much damage' then you nerf wars damage. You dont claim it is a 'strength' then go give it a 'weakness' to compensate because players will judge one to be more important than the other. If wars do to much damage the solution is simple. Either nerf war damage or buff other tank damage. Not say "well tank1 does less damage and Tank2 tank does more damage. Give tank1 a party shield and that will 'balance' the tanks. No. If damage is the issue address damage. If party buffs are the issue then adjust the party buffs. Dont adjust the party shield to address a damage discrepency. Apples to apples. Oranges to oranges. Thats the only way you can ever hope to have any balance.

If war has 2 apples and 1 orange and pld has 2 oranges and 1 apple, thats not balance. Players will decide they like apples and warrior will be better than pld even if you give pld 3 oranges.

Pretty sure if we use the apple and oranges analogy we have WAR with 2 apples and 2 oranges. They have a plethora of mitigation and attack options for any situation which isn't always true for the other 2.

Yes, which is exactly why all tanks should have 2 apples and 2 oranges in the epansion. Not MTs with 2 apples and OTs with 2 oranges. This is about how to design them in the future. The stormblood ship has sailed.

They royally screwed DRK in Stormblood compared to Heavensward. It definitely isn't as fastpaced and fluid as it used to be. They are apparently doing "something" with it. So I guess we will have to wait on that. We also have to see how Gunbreaker will turn out. How it plays and all that crap.

I also don't think homogenizing all the Tank classes to ultimately have the same mitigation and DPS is the answer here. I would like the jobs to have different playstyles but still do their assigned role in different ways.

Because right now I have little incentive to play any Tank but WAR atm. Since that provides the most fun factor, sustain options, mitigation options, and attack options.

Personally if a Tank has mitigation and damage at all times it needs to be in the middle. Most mitigation? Weaker damage. The least mitigation? The most damage.

But here we are with WAR which IMO has the best of everything. PLD and DRK have very niche situations where they shine one very specific encounters and then you get overgeared and you run back to WAR again.

>_>

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I also don't think homogenizing all the Tank classes to ultimately have the same mitigation and DPS is the answer here. I would like the jobs to have different playstyles but still do their assigned role in different ways.

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These are not mutually exclusive events.

Currently, all Tank classes do have the same DPS. Yet, their playstyles are different.

Most of Tanks defenses are the same (Only difference being the "Immunity" skills). Yet, their playstyles are different.

Playstyle has nothing to do with mitigation CD's as they're all just "Press button before Tankbuster" skills.

Playstyle has nothing to do with DPS. DPS is merely a matter of tweaking numbers to certain values.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Personally if a Tank has mitigation and damage at all times it needs to be in the middle. Most mitigation? Weaker damage. The least mitigation? The most damage.

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The issue with that thought process is that it invariably ends up with people just favouring the tank with the most damage. They'll just get healers (Or PLD. Or even rDPS with Palisade/Apoc) to cover their mitigation disadvantage.

Damage is and always will be THE most important factor of any job in the game. Since damage is the only infinitely scaling variable that makes fights continually get easier/faster. People will adjust in order to maximize damage output, just like how tanking in DPS stance is now the norm because DPS > Defenses.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I also don't think homogenizing all the Tank classes to ultimately have the same mitigation and DPS is the answer here. I would like the jobs to have different playstyles but still do their assigned role in different ways.

Because right now I have little incentive to play any Tank but WAR atm. Since that provides the most fun factor, sustain options, mitigation options, and attack options.

Personally if a Tank has mitigation and damage at all times it needs to be in the middle. Most mitigation? Weaker damage. The least mitigation? The most damage.

But here we are with WAR which IMO has the best of everything. PLD and DRK have very niche situations where they shine one very specific encounters and then you get overgeared and you run back to WAR again.

>_>

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The same DPS is not the same thing as same playstyle. See: Every DPS class in the game that is in the same ballpark for damage. DPS is a target number. Nothing more. How your actions add up to reach that target number can be literally anything. It can be bursty. It can be DOT. It can be ranged, melee, magic, centerered around powerful GCDs, centered around buff windows. It doesnt matter. We can make a mnk and sam do (virtually) the same DPS by changing the potencies of their abilities.

DPS symetry is fundamentally not a constraint on tank design because all you have to do is change potency values so the job using its actions hits the target. The actions, buffs, rotations are not impacted by the target number to hit. The sky is the limit for interesting ways to deal damage in unique, job specific ways.

Mitigation is more challenging to keep unique, but (imo) should be broadly homogenized because this isnt an ARPG. The way mitigation is done in this game is always "Spike buster damage is coming. Hit button before it happens". No tank is defined by its core CD kit (read: Rampart, Veng/Wall/Sent). None of those actions define any job or change the way they play. The only aspects that remain to bring closer in line to homogenize are immunities (at least the timers), and access to on demand IB/TBN/Shelltron. If that core set of abilities is roughly equal, then the fluff mitigation abilities can be job specific to add more of that jobs flavor (ToB for HP synergy, bulwark for shield synergy, Dark Mind needs some help to fit better here) etc. Homogenizing mitigation is really not a very big step considering it has already moved most of the way there as it is. Holmgang moving to 5+ minutes doesnt make war stop feeling like war to play for example.

Homogenize mitigation all day. DPS have been just fine and have nothing else but offensive mechanics to differentiate them. Tanks can also be just as unique as the DPS in this game with homogenized core mitigation tools, some class specific fluff mitigation, and a DPS system that is unique to them that hits the 'Tank level DPS' target.

People tend to take some liberties with how they define "essential tanking functions." Anything that you do better than me is "essential." Anything that I do better than you is "optional". There's a fine line between wanting to be an effective tank in all types of raid content and feeling entitled to being good at everything.

You can say that the "Stormblood ship has sailed", but we're also obligated to learn from our mistakes. How could we have predicted that the devs would listen to the absurd demands from WAR players between 4.0 and 4.2? It's not like we were to blame. And yet, even now on the forums, you can find people designing new raid-wide damage buffs for WAR, and proposing ways to turn IB into a dps gain. You won't find these people arguing for checks and balances on Holmgang. It's not like we needed more reasons to make WAR mandatory.

But let's let bygones be bygones, am I right?

At the very least, the proposed system represents a threat to the status quo. It also gives the devs a means to say "No." Why aren't you entitled to this cool skill that another tank brings? Because you're not that tank. You have your own cool stuff as well. Now go back to your own niche.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

People tend to take some liberties with how they define "essential tanking functions." Anything that you do better than me is "essential." Anything that I do better than you is "optional". There's a fine line between wanting to be an effective tank in all types of raid content and feeling entitled to being good at everything.

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I literally have not seen a single person doing this.

If anything, I've seen the opposite. Wherein players are saying "Here, you should have my thing that I do better than you because it's essential for the role"

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's not like we were to blame. And yet, even now on the forums, you can find people designing new raid-wide damage buffs for WAR, and proposing ways to turn IB into a dps gain.

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Yeah, because god forbid people are allowed to discuss classes without having to focus entirely on Holmgang :rolleyes:

Also, taking an aside that "Turn IB into a dps gain" is literally the same as the fact that Sheltron and TBN are ALREADY DPS gains for PLD/DRK as well as being actually useable skills because of not being locked behind tank stance.

If you're being completely blind to any notion of players actually caring about balance, you'd know that if players wanted to rework IB into a DPS gain, it would come either at the cost of DPS elsewhere (Such as lower potency on FC) or would come at DPS increases for other tanks to retain balance.

But, no, let your anti-WAR bias make you think that anyone discussing the job is asking for balance be completely ignored.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

At the very least, the proposed system represents a threat to the status quo. It also gives the devs a means to say "No." Why aren't you entitled to this cool skill that another tank brings? Because you're not that tank. You have your own cool stuff as well. Now go back to your own niche.

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So you're saying that DRK should be kept as is and that Holmgang shouldn't be nerfed because it gives the devs a means to say "No". Why aren't you entitled to this cool skill that WAR brings? Because you're not WAR. You have your own cool stuff as well. Now go back to your own niche.

See how stupid that sounds?

Designing niches and keeping the "Status quo" (Which, literally, you entire basis for WAR hate has been the fact that the status quo has been WAR > All... Why would you be FOR maintaining it?) is incredibly stupid design.

Since it literally adds nothing but imbalance to the game which will result in the status quo remaining that Tanks are imbalanced. Which is not the ideal state. The ideal state is that Tank are balanced. That there isn't any Tank that is significantly above or below the standard.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

4 tanks, 12 combinations of MT/OT. Complete freedom of choice.
4 tanks, 2 'MT', 2 'OT' sub classes. 4 combinations of MT/OT that are actually decent. Crap choice.

Thats a complete deletion of player choice. That is INCREDIBLY restrictive. Have you been playing this or any other MMO? If a job is significantly more effective at a position it will lock down that position. Just because a Pld 'can' tank the boss and a war 'can' hit it from the side is irrelivant. Players do not accept that now when the jobs are not explicitly designed for niches. That will just get exponentially worse if tanks are actively designed for this subset of a role.

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Not at all.

You still have freedom of choice. If the MTs are GNB and WAR, and the OTs are PLD and DRK, then sure, the OPTIMAL choices will only be 4 combos. But there's nothing stopping you from taking WAR/GNB or PLD/DRK, etc. Sure it might not be the absolute most optimal, but for 99.9% of the content, you don't need the most optimal.

You realize that right now, we only have 1 optimal choice, right? WAR/PLD. So they are effectively increasing the number of optimal choices by 4 times. But they're also increasing the total combinations possible by 2x (6 total combos now, 12 with GNB).

If they made all tanks homogeneous (what they would have to do to make all tanks equally suited for MT and OT), then that would be ridiculously boring, as you'd basically just be choosing what skin you want for your tank, as the classes would all effectively be the same.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I would be in favour of every tank having some deficit in their kit, leaving some slack that their co-tank can pick up.

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Izsha's missed point (I think) is that not all deficits are created equal. The HW analogy was pretty spot on, didn't matter if PLD had all the party support, at the end of the raid all that mattered was damage. Hell, look at current DRK, for whatever deficit it presents in party support it sure isn't making up for it otherwise (I suppose it's strength is personal mitigation, but how well is that desired considering the other tanks aren't exactly lacking it?)

So really, each tank having it's own supposed deficit is precisely what helped get us in the situation we are in.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Not at all.

You still have freedom of choice. If the MTs are GNB and WAR, and the OTs are PLD and DRK, then sure, the OPTIMAL choices will only be 4 combos. But there's nothing stopping you from taking WAR/GNB or PLD/DRK, etc. Sure it might not be the absolute most optimal, but for 99.9% of the content, you don't need the most optimal.

You realize that right now, we only have 1 optimal choice, right? WAR/PLD. So they are effectively increasing the number of optimal choices by 4 times. But they're also increasing the total combinations possible by 2x (6 total combos now, 12 with GNB).

If they made all tanks homogeneous (what they would have to do to make all tanks equally suited for MT and OT), then that would be ridiculously boring, as you'd basically just be choosing what skin you want for your tank, as the classes would all effectively be the same.

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I agree with you that more choices is better, but it does not follow that increasing the number choices increases the number of optimal combinations. Just to illustrate my point. Here is a sequence of numbers 4 5 6 7 if you assume it is always positive (multiply or add) the combination of 6 and 7 will always be higher total than any other pair of numbers in the sequence, and this will be the "optimal" combination as far as players see it. If the required total is 9 (or 20) then any combination can reach it provided you treat each pair the same (all combinations add, or all combinations multiply). but the most optimal, and the most chosen, will always be 6 and 7. If I add to that sequence 2 3 4 5 6 7, I have increased the choices, but not the optimal pair. If I add 3 4 5 6 7 8. The most optimal choice has changed (7 and 8), but the number of optimal combinations has not. It can be argued that 6 and 7 remains a "good" choice, but it is no longer optimal.

It gets more interesting if other numbers (or all numbers) are the same, and the closer you get to that is closer to the mythical "balance" everyone tries to achieve.

EDIT: Sorry, I think someone else beat me to it and explained better.

EDIT 2: There is another deciding factor which is player perception. The best way for me to do this is like this 3 4 5 6 7 8. As long as players perceive 6 and 7 more strongly or pervasively than other choices then it will remain the most chosen even if 7 and 8 is more optimal.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Sure it might not be the absolute most optimal, but for 99.9% of the content, you don't need the most optimal.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

You realize that right now, we only have 1 optimal choice, right?

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This sounds awfully circular.

There's one "optimal" combo now. Where is this guarantee that there will all of a sudden be 4 "optimal" combos? Are there 4 "optimal" combinations of DPS for the plethora of DPS jobs available? No, there is still only 1 meta comp. It seems reasonable enough to me that whether they split into MT/OT or keep it like it is, there will still be 1, and only 1, optimal combo better than all the rest. Not a valid leg for your argument to stand on, especially since it doesn't matter to us 99%.

It also stands to reason that the further the disparity (or deficits) between MT/OT sub-roles, the further the gap between optimal and sub-optimal comps. How do you close the gap? H o m o g e n i z a t i o n

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Also, taking an aside that "Turn IB into a dps gain" is literally the same as the fact that Sheltron and TBN are ALREADY DPS gains for PLD/DRK as well as being actually useable skills because of not being locked behind tank stance.

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TBN is a micro dps lost-gain depending of the situation with chances to become a greater DPS lost by overflowing blood on top of that, its basically consider dps neutral so its not the same.