After playing DRK, I've realized something... (no, it's not another thread like that)

It's minimal, but I'd love a satisfying graphic for when a shield breaks or tank specific mitigation is used. I remember whenever The Blackest Night broke, it felt good to see the gauge go up or the symbol light up... Either way, you heard a sound after it broke and always felt amazing after a TB or something. Right now we have group aoe's that put a small visual around each player, like Dark Missionary being basically a mini LB3 or GNB's Heart of Light putting gold protection hexagons around everyone... But it got me thinking.

Wouldn't it be nice if the person you Heart of Stoned, or Covered, or TBN's, or Shake it Off'd had some sort of visual for its duration to show you the fact it's being mitigated? Mitigation is something that has always been hard to tell when it even works majority of the time in the game unless you're doing high end content and paying specific attention to precisely how much damage something deals. Probably the most noticeable occurrences are the tank LB3 in situations that require it or fixed HP shields. Otherwise, that time you flicked a small barrier on your party member? They probably barely noticed or they didn't even see you cast the initial animation.

This is more than just recognition on other players though. I'd personally like to see as a tank that being hit isn't just me being cleaved with an axe through my face or a laser beam through the stomach. I'd love if when I mitigate something, there's some form of small reflection of the fact I'm mitigating the damage outright. I'm not saying it has to be the flashiest thing, but maybe a repeat of a visual when you're hit by an auto or some attack would be neat? Or perhaps when a fixed HP shield breaks, it causes a small "shatter" animation on your character? I'm sure this would be iffy for healers with these types of barriers but I figure healers already get satisfaction from the cast itself and the reflection of the heal actually increasing your hp. In the same sense that a damage dealer uses a skill and sees the opponent lose a chunk of hp. Whereas a tank uses a shield and... they still take damage but I guess it's less of it because math.

I remember when protect had this visual when cast on players too, every hit they took just made a small visual of the protect barrier around the character where the enemy was hitting them. It wasn't enough to be overwhelming in graphic but it was just enough to be like "oh neat! I'm protected :D" kinda thing.

Why if you can see the shield over the user's health bar on the party list? Cover is different because you can see the duration if you are the tank. There is also the status bar on your own individual HUD if you dont have it disabled which shows you which buffs you have active on you.

Besides this if the user has party animations turned off, even if they did add such feature it would not benefit the player as it would still count as player animation.

Why? Because visual polish makes some actions more satisfying. Same reason games spend time on unique walk animations or cool weather effects.

Neat suggestion, OP. I liked the little protect strike effect, and a subtle little shatter visual when Adlo or Benison breaks would be interesting as well.

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Originally Posted by Harmonea

Why? Because visual polish makes some actions more satisfying. Same reason games spend time on unique walk animations or cool weather effects.

Neat suggestion, OP. I liked the little protect strike effect, and a subtle little shatter visual when Adlo or Benison breaks would be interesting as well.

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^ this pretty much

I especially thought of this during the stormblood release video when it shows Susano's sword coming down on the dark knight's shield and it just kinda... "breaks" and there's a visual for it. As if the shield actually broke on impact and deflected it.

I understand if this at some point gets implemented. But if at least some of the valid concerns people have across the role aren’t addressed before something like this realized then it might be seen as makeup on a pig.

heavy agree on this, the one thing i haven't liked about tanking is not really feeling rewarded for mitigating properly, a buster comes, you use a mitigation spell, and that's it, you don't really get upfront rewards for doing it or satisfaction.

that is atleast the one thing i do like about current drk, is that it rewards you for mitigating not only by taking less damage, but you get the little noise when the shield breaks in combination with the lit up spells, that's good and i wish the other tanks had something similar to this, any kind of reward system that does actually give you things for mitigating. aside from that exception, tanks at the moment really just feel like simplified blue dps that press a random generic slap on ability whenever a buster comes.

as a side note, one minor thing i would love to see changed about drk is maybe putting shadow wall's sound effect + visual animation on tbn instead. shadow wall is such a satisfying ability to use because of the sound effect + animation but is sadly used infrequently and has no flavor beyond that since it's just flat mitigation. overall i think the sound/animation for it would fit much better and i'd think it would make more sense to put the meatier sound effect on the core focus of the job, tbn currently has a pretty weird animation and quiet/generic sound effect

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Originally Posted by Danelo

I understand if this at some point gets implemented. But if at least some of the valid concerns people have across the role aren’t addressed before something like this realized then it might be seen as makeup on a pig.

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I agree there for sure. An afterthought perhaps.

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Originally Posted by 3c-33

heavy agree on this, the one thing i haven't liked about tanking is not really feeling rewarded for mitigating properly, a buster comes, you use a mitigation spell, and that's it, you don't really get upfront rewards for doing it or satisfaction.

that is atleast the one thing i do like about current drk, is that it rewards you for mitigating not only by taking less damage, but you get the little noise when the shield breaks in combination with the lit up spells, that's good and i wish the other tanks had something similar to this, any kind of reward system that does actually give you things for mitigating. aside from that exception, tanks at the moment really just feel like simplified blue dps that press a random generic slap on ability whenever a buster comes.

as a side note, one minor thing i would love to see changed about drk is maybe putting shadow wall's sound effect + visual animation on tbn instead. shadow wall is such a satisfying ability to use because of the sound effect + animation but is sadly used infrequently and has no flavor beyond that since it's just flat mitigation. overall i think the sound/animation for it would fit much better and i'd think it would make more sense to put the meatier sound effect on the core focus of the job, tbn currently has a pretty weird animation and quiet/generic sound effect

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Agreed. Probably why I suggested this to begin with was because of DRK's shield popping that up when you're hit hard enough. Or maybe even some numbers on the tank's end showing how much damage you took and bigger numbers when it's less damage. Doesn't even need to be a mechanical thing, just a "hey, you did the thing, here's what it looks like! Good for you!" lol.

I disagree on the latter half of your post though... Shadow wall is outstanding and makes a noticeable difference when properly used. You should use it as frequently as possible considering it's like every other tank's mitigation, a whole 15 seconds of 30% mitigation. Personally I like TBN's barrier effect and how it was perceived in SB's release trailer.

https://youtu.be/3_JxY2pRHn4?t=337

^ it's just lacking the "shattered" graphic like that video shows it having.

I was thinking about this thread while I was playing gunbreaker yesterday, and it really made me wish the invulns had a persistent visual effect. Hallowed Ground and Superbolide have their cast animations, and then you're just blandly invulnerable with no queue to signified it has ended.

From a tank perspective, this is unsatisfying because you don't get that little visual reward for being an untouchable wall of protection. However, from my experiencing capping SCH and leveling WHM, damn would it be cool to have a clear visual indicator when those abilities are active and when they drop off. It feels like a win-win suggestion. Added flavor for tanks, QoL for healers.

I main DRK, and now I'm in love with the idea that dark energy should ooze off of me, the way it does off my shadow clone, if Living Dead gets activated, or that Gunbreakers should sit in a cool looking dome while Superbolide ticks down.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I disagree on the latter half of your post though... Shadow wall is outstanding and makes a noticeable difference when properly used. You should use it as frequently as possible considering it's like every other tank's mitigation, a whole 15 seconds of 30% mitigation. Personally I like TBN's barrier effect and how it was perceived in SB's release trailer.

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Well when I said it's used infrequently, I'm mainly looking at the cooldown of it (120 seconds) when compared to something like tbn, that difference just naturally means you're not going to press shadow wall nearly as much as the other which is why I would love to hear it more often (on tbn) than you currently do

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Originally Posted by Brannagh

I was thinking about this thread while I was playing gunbreaker yesterday, and it really made me wish the invulns had a persistent visual effect. Hallowed Ground and Superbolide have their cast animations, and then you're just blandly invulnerable with no queue to signified it has ended.

From a tank perspective, this is unsatisfying because you don't get that little visual reward for being an untouchable wall of protection. However, from my experiencing capping SCH and leveling WHM, damn would it be cool to have a clear visual indicator when those abilities are active and when they drop off. It feels like a win-win suggestion. Added flavor for tanks, QoL for healers.

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To be fair, you do at least do get that "invulnerable" sound effect when mobs hit you during this which I'm a fan of, very similar to the protect sound.

That does remind me though, white mage and ast both get super noticeable visual indicators when they're using their level 80 abilities with the cool wings/constellation and all, no reason to not give that to tanks tbh, definitely cool and helpful.

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Originally Posted by 3c-33

Well when I said it's used infrequently, I'm mainly looking at the cooldown of it (120 seconds) when compared to something like tbn, that difference just naturally means you're not going to press shadow wall nearly as much as the other which is why I would love to hear it more often (on tbn) than you currently do



To be fair, you do at least do get that "invulnerable" sound effect when mobs hit you during this which I'm a fan of, very similar to the protect sound.

That does remind me though, white mage and ast both get super noticeable visual indicators when they're using their level 80 abilities with the cool wings/constellation and all, no reason to not give that to tanks tbh, definitely cool and helpful.

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I feel like that's why it's good that way though. Too much of a good thing and it becomes relatively boring after a while. SW you feel excited to use such a powerful CD because of that long CD and good sound effect personally but meh.