Changes/Abilities you'd like to see for 4.0 tanks.

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Originally Posted by F_Maximillian

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I totally dig some of your listed suggestions and I'd like to see some of these be implemented in 4.0, like more ways to mitigate and a flash DoT, but some things did bother me a little due to how much they impede on the designs of both WAR and DRK. WAR feels more like the tank with self heals and while I understand DRK can self heal as well, DRK has to pay a lot for its self healing and often it wont be as good as what WAR has. As for the magic block/extra mit, it doesn't really seem fair to DRK for PLD to overtake the identity of another tank for the sake of making it more tanky. Yoshi commented on the status of PLD as the "best defensive tank", which I believe he meant in regards to how well it mitigates physical damage as opposed to how well DRK mitigates magic. With rage of halone, blocking, and a 10% added onto sentinel over shadow wall and vengeance, PLD tanks physical hits the best out of the 3, but I don't think yoshi meant for PLD to be the absolute king of all types of mitigation, because as it stands, it isn't

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Stance-on-Pld
^ Here's my source for what yoshi said in regards to PLD blocking magic and being the most defensive, if anyone cares to take a look.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

They also MT because they're better MTs than WAR.

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Not entirely. The mitigation potential on WAR is insane with skills like inner beast and, if you count the thrill of battle + conva combo to be a cooldown, you then have a tank with more than just one way to mitigate damage and also many ways to do it as well. WAR is also the only tank to have unchained, something that is incredibly strong for opening in any fight and maintaining strong threat on the target for any encounter. In fact, I think when you take WARs insane self healing into consideration, its probably the best at actually tanking. What really drives WAR into the OT slot is the lack of MT exclusive abilities like Reprisal or blocking, the only real argument they have to MTing is unchained, which does happen but an unchained opener is usually followed with the PLD/DRK provoking to become the new MT.

What really drives WAR into the OT slot is that PLD and DRK are better MTs. If WARs were better MTs, then groups would just bring 2 WARs. LB penalty doesn't really matter.

Both PLD and DRK have better mitigation without sacrificing any of their DPS.

For a WAR to have comparable overall mitigation, they need to rely on IB and if they're dancing to Defiance and holding / spending stacks on IB, then their DPS will not be better than DRK and possibly even PLD. A massive chunk of WAR's DPS comes from stack-efficient FCs and Deliverance up-time. Before patch 3.4, WARs were the tank that lost the most DPS while MTing / with higher tank-stance up-time. I'm not sure if the tweak to SwO changed that but I doubt it did.

In terms of mitigation, without heavy IB use, PLD and DRK are just better in fights that favor their respective strengths. PLD has Rampart, Sentinel, Sheltron as their go-to CDs. DRK has Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, and DA DM as their go-to CDs. WAR has RI, Vengeance and ToB against physical damage and just Vengeance and ToB against magic. PLD and DRK have stronger CDs on shorter recasts as well as better immunities.

WAR's self healing is nice but it's not that relevant. Equilibrium is a great skill and an actual difference maker but it's locked to Defiance so it comes with a price. The rest of WAR's self-sustain isn't really going to be the difference between life and death. At best it gives your healers a window to refresh their DoTs.

Also to note that WAR loses less for starting pull vs DRK/PLD. WAR also has way easier time maintaining aggro lead due to how BB combo is in the DPS rotation. This is what makes WAR pulling bosses better. Another point is WAR has been in a weird spot since 2.x because of BB alone, Berserked BB has been awkward for me to keep an eye on due to the amount of spike aggro it produces which competes the said aggro against MT. There has been multiple of times where WARs could take my aggro off openers which IMO is a very bad design for OT slot in general, PLD is another culprit for this because of Savage Blade, it just feels counterintuitive to use RA combo after a swap and you get aggro back sometimes.

DRK:
Traited Salted Earth
5% chance to inflict Blight
for 24 seconds.
Effect: Magic Vulnerability.

Lv.70
Unholy (oGCD) - Deals 380 potency to a target and surrounding targets.
Dark Arts: Reduces MP consumption by 1/3. 30 sec
(Recast 60 sec)

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Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum

DRK:
Traited Salted Earth
5% chance to inflict Blight
for 24 seconds.
Effect: Magic Vulnerability.

Lv.70
Unholy (oGCD) - Deals 380 potency to a target and surrounding targets.
Dark Arts: Reduces MP consumption by 1/3. 30 sec
(Recast 60 sec)

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Reducing MP reduction sounds like an amazing idea for DRK. It doesnt gain any MP outside of its internal abilities which lead to it bottoming out when your weapon/price are down, so slowing the MP depletion or reducing the cost of your dark arts would be amazing for a DRK and really fun to boot. Though the aoe potency I feel is a bit strong, maybe it could have a ricochet affect where it does less to each surrounding target?

Yoshi P talked a bit more about some of the possible changes to Tanking abilities in a recent interview (http://gamerescape.com/2016/11/15/fa...-fan-festival/ )

There's some really interesting things in there. Stuff like Provoke, and even some basic "Reduce X% Damage" cooldowns might be moved into "role based skills" that every class gets, leaving more room to make each Tanking job more unique. The UI changes might be really helpful too, such as combining Wrath/Abandon stacks into one visible meter you interact with more. Once again, these are only examples of possible changes, but it's certainly an interesting read.