Diversifying Tanks

So, here's the obligatory thread for those who would like balance and functionality among all tanks, but do not believe such requires that they also be so highly homogeneous.

Note that you're free to talk about just one tank, or any number of them.

But, if they previously faced, in your opinion, excessive overlap with another tank (e.g. Delirium - Inner Release), please note how the job in question would be differed from its overlapping job if those new differences would not be obvious from what you've done to the job in question alone.

To be clear, this isn't just about making jobs different from each other. If they don't become more "DRK-like" or "WAR-like", etc., in the process of differentiation, then we've wasted a significant opportunity. The goal is to make cohesive and compelling kits, working around central themes (which may be far more than just a couple mechanics).

Last note: If you find some system or mechanic that's just clearly and significantly superior for fluidity, depth, functionality, or whatnot, don't be afraid to use it on multiple tanks. All our base systems are similarly shared between all jobs, after all. If, say, giving an effect based on gauge consumed happens to feel right on every job, go for it. But differentiate how that plays into the feel of each tank -- e.g. what capacities, needs, or priorities it highlights, or how it fits into the buttonflow or macrorotation of the job.

Alright. Have at it. I'll post my own thoughts at a later time.

Space reserved for quick links to highly-Liked ideas.

my idea for DRK to become more like his HW version:

bring back dark arts in the first place, having a second option with edge/flood to bring a meaning of the darkside buff, need more time? edge/flood, don't need more time? dark arts, need mitigation TBN, TBN will add a DA effect afecting only DA an not edge/flood.

dark arts mechanics will include:
- having 1 extensible combo, if you use DA on souleater you will be able to use gillotine as a 4 step of the combo (see delirium for a second option).
- buff and extend the aoe combo with abissal drain as a finisher.
- adding a dot effect on bloodspiller/quietus diferent potency and duration on each one to secure you want to apply the dot in both single and aoe target situations, the dot is called scourge on both and don't stack.

blood weapon/delirium

-blood weapon: mostly back with speed, MP rates ajusted and recast/duration extended depending of delirium to have more uptime, will affect again oGCD (tentative), no longer grant blood.

-delirium: i have 4 versions for delirium, first one act as a extender BW like in SB but free of blood cost (there the duration of bloodweapon change or not) or make it with gillotine a 4 step combo from shyphon strike, reworked again to become a oGCD of be fully removed of the game.

MP economy:
DRK will have a steady economy without much spikes, his management will be around keeping a dot (sourge from bloodspiller) and a buff (darkside from edge/flood)) and the rest of the MP for DA to extend combos and TBN, reduce the cost of all skills to 2k to add some flexibility and comfiness iwith more room to act combined with bloodweapon gains, carve and spit and shiphon strike will ensure some steady control of the job and have a acceptable rate of MP gains/uses, nothing overhelming but enough to make it feel fluid.

-living dead: grant you the status of living dead preventing you HP drop below 1 HP all attacks recover HP equal to 100% of the damage done, duration and recast balanced to his effects.

to finish living shadow: under the effect of living shadow DRK get a damage buff over all his kit to let it act as a burst window, the recast of living shadow can still remain the same or being reduced, i leave that free to share opinions.

things that will gain:

-comlexity, and a feel the kit will sinergy himself.
-identity, pretty unique gameplay in many ways.
-no more excesive downtimes.
-still be able to hold resource for buff windows and enjoy the benefict of all of them better by no longer having to spam edge (magical attack) only so brotherhood and embolden will grant DRK better gains.
-new SHB gauge 100% usefull.

actions removed:

-salted earth.

personal thoughs:


i consider DRK will recover his busy feeling, his buffer/enchanced nature the job use to have in a unique way to manipulate GCD and control his resources, still will have a burst window under living shadow and wont feel incomplete or a copy of other job anymore as the job feel more like HW again without being overhelming to anyone.


edit: i forgeth about blood, to ensure a good control of the scourge debuff the combo (or both combos if ppl love the second combo more apealing) will grant the same amount of blood so you will have bloodspiller when you need to reaply the dot.

i consider right now PLD and GNB perfect in they own, way, for WAR i have no opinion yet, diversity on tanks should be on his gameplay on my opinion.

For now I will touch upon defensive uniqueness since all of the tanks 30% mitigation tools are basically the same thing and Sentinel might as well be the another role action for tank, and each of the tanks don't really have anything big to seperate them from one another.


First up is WAR; 1 thing WAR is generally known for is being the HP sponge tank which is all but removed now, so 1 way to fix that is applying HP up buffs to all of WARs defensives and group utility based on damage reduction %, which increases HP recovered via healing magic by said %.


PLD; Just add 1200 cure potency to all of PLDs Oath gauge spenders, and make Divine Veil apply a raid 1200 cure potency heal that also provides shield, same with Passage of Arms but add regen to it.


GNB; should have some focus on the charge system that is only used for most gap closers, En Avant, and True North for most of their defensives. EDIT: And apply the Brutal Shell buff with the barriers equaling different cure potencies on Heart of Stone/Light and Aurora.


Now the balancing problem that is DRK; More focus on HP shields on all of DRKs defensives based on % of those skills, and The Blackest Night is on a way shorter cooldown.


Invulns are not included because even I don't know to fix them while keeping them unique and making them more overpowered outside of recast timer but it may end up coming to making some invulns just so powerful that you can only use it at least once or twice and encounter...

Now to talk about offensive uniqueness for the tanks that need it most since both PLD and GNB are pretty balanced in this regard.


WAR; so my over all knowledge of WAR is very limited, but from I can gather is that WAR might need more focus on sustained DPS with at least 1 or 2 burst windows, so WAR would obviously need Skull Sunder and Butcher's block to come back but not as seperate combo paths, but as part of the full combo, which is as follows; Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Skull Sunder -> Storm's Path -> Storm's Eye -> Butcher's Block, a six hit combo path that does insane damage the higher you go up the combo, all while generating beast gauge which is used for guaranteed Critical Direct hit combo paths; Inner Beast ->Fell Cleave -> Inner Chaos for single target, and Steel Cyclone -> Decimate ->Chaotic Cyclone. Deliverance would come back as a separate 20% damage up buff that lasts 30 seconds but sits on a 60 second cooldown(cooldown timer is to keep it in line with GNB and PLD 20+% damage up buffed burst window), Inner Release would need to be adjusted to where it lasts 15 seconds and increases the damage dealt by all beast gauge abilities by 50%.


DRK; Darkside needs to go back to stop natural MP refresh in combat, but now doubles MP regain from from certain skills and abilities, and increases damage dealt by 20% and reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto attack delay by 20% and makes it so that while Darkside is active spells now scale with skillspeed(the devs might need to find a way to make this work) and can only enable certain offensive skills and abilites while Darkside is active. Blood Weapon converts a portion of damage dealt into HP and at a later level increases the amount restored and provides shielding based on how much is restored as the trait Blood Price, and enables certain combo paths to restore more HP as Delirium.

Now for reworking combo paths on DRK; combo path a will be Hard Slash ->Spinning Slash -> Power Slash and combo path b will be Scourge -> Syphon Strike -> Souleater. Now for how Souleater and Power Slash are going to work, Souleater doubles the potency of the next Power Slash(buff lasts 20 seconds) and Power Slash generates 10 or 20 blood gauge and doubles blood gauge gain on Souleater, and Unleash/Stalwart Soul are now target AoEs rather than PBAoE(because big pulls) and the combo path is Unleash -> Abyssal Drain ->Stalwart Soul which Abyssal Drain and Stalwart Soul both recover HP and MP and generate blood gauge, and blood gauge is used to power up MP spending combos, Edge of Shadow -> Bloodspiller -> Carve and Spit for single target and Dark Passenger -> Quietus -> Flood of Shadow for AoE(potency increase is between 140 and 280) and have 150 cure potency for AoE and 300 cure potency on single target. Dark Arts is brought back as a button by removing MP and blood gauge costs and increases damage dealt by these combo paths by 50% for 20 seconds, and sits on either a 60 second or 90 second cooldown.


EDIT: I realized that PLD and GNB would be bottom tank DPS wise if these changes somehow happened, so quick fixes to make them on par with DRK and WAR, Gnashing Fang recast is reduced to 15 seconds, Sonic Break and Bow Shock recast reduced to 30 seconds, and Intervene extends Fight or Flight buff(if it's active) by 8 seconds while granting 3 more stacks of Sword Oath

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Originally Posted by shao32

-living dead: grant you the status of living dead preventing you HP drop below 1 HP all attacks recover HP equal to 100% of the damage done, duration and recast balanced to his effects.

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This may actually be one of the best suggestions for LD I've seen so kudos. I would even go far to say to have it be a 6-8 second duration and have the damage to healing effect be the ONLY way a DRK could heal itself up during that time for balance.

As for the other tanks and my suggestions, there's quite a bit that I would want to change to make them feel different, but I'll post some of my more "realistic" ideas that I think they wouldn't have much trouble implementing:

DRK

Delirium - The only problem I really have with this is that its boring to spam the same move. So instead, make it more like GNB where using delirium will open up a specific combo window each with different animations. Each move can bring back some of the old animations (scourge, old delirium, power slash etc.) with scourge applying its old dot effect. Can have each move have its own button for complexity (less likely) or just have a one button that changes depending on where you are in the combo (somewhat like continuation). To break up the homogenization, allow the use of blood weapon to give the haste effect inside the delirium window (2sec or less recasts)

Abyssal Drain - make it "spammable" again but also make it cost 2-3k mp

Stalwart Soul and dark mind - add a 5% physical damage reduction

Shadow wall - add the old blood price effect of mp refresh per hit to it

Living shadow - I would just have tiers for blood gauge usage. 50 BG for normal duration 100 for double duration.


GNB

The only thing I really want to see different on GNB at this time is adding a third cartridge slot and giving GNB the option of having another defensive move that costs 2 cartridges and have it be a solid 25% damage reduction self buff. For balance, we could get rid of camouflage.

Heart of light - keep the magic damage reduction the same but let it apply a small shield (10% hp)

WAR

Storm's eye - either extend the duration of the damage increase to 45-60 seconds and let it be applicable with Mythril Tempest

Storm's path - slightly increase healing potency

RI and Nascent - separate these and make Nascent self targetable

Chaotic cyclone and Inner chaos - There is a part of me that wouldn't mind having these as inner release enders like Confiteor just to change up the fell cleave spam a bit, but I think that would have to change how they work outside of IR. Or make it different by having each fell cleave/decimate increase in potency slightly with the last move ending in a Chaotic or Inner chaos.

Onslaught - if they're going to keep the gauge cost, reduce it to 10 and increase the potency.

PLD

PLD is of course pretty solid right now (although personally its the most boring tank for me) so I wouldn't change much

Divine Veil - may not be diversifying but just let it be automatically activated

Atonement - even if its just 3 uses, it irks me that SE made yet another "Spam this move", so make this a unique combo.

Shelltron - add a pseudo shield swipe effect in the form of an extra auto attack per use.

Sentinel - gives oath gauge per hit taken

Do we actually need invuln moves. Could be more unique by taking those away. Instead of Living Dead you could have a super-TBN (long recast hp barrier worth 50% of max hp). and superbolide could, idk, set hp to 100% (full heal) but place a debuff on you that reduces heals received after that by 50% for some duration so there's some drawback to your self benediction.

To me, PLD is fine, it could maybe use a few more moves but thematically it’s a solid sword and board job that uses white magic.

WAR, it’s alright, I’d like to see nascent flash lose the drain and instead become retaliate which delivers a counter attack when struck like vengeance. I feel WAR should be more of the aggressive tank, a few self heals in path, thrill and equilibrium are ok but nascent flash puts it too close back to being a drain tank which I don’t think fits for WAR.

DRK I think should be more focused on drains, I’d totally overhaul it because right now it is dark in name alone. Like calling the move shadow wall doesn’t make it any different from sentinel. But I’d try and keep some of the themes in place. For example the blackest night could become drain, absorb 500 potency of damage from the opponent restoring 25% of the DRKs HP, HP over the maximum is restored as a shield. Shadow wall could become absorb power, decrease the enemies damage dealt by 15% while reducing your damage taken by 15%. I’d just like to see some actual dark themed moves on dark knight, and draining like a vampire fits the bill (having more personal hp drains would also make living dead more viable as a move).

GNB I don’t really know how to make this more thematic because a gunblade just doesn’t feel like a tanking weapon to me. I mean a sword that requires precise timing on trigger pulls to increase cutting power = tank? Maybe it could have been some kind of evasion + parry tank if either of those stats had a place in ffxiv.

I think the GCDs are the easiest way to differentiate them, along with putting in some proper stances where appropriate.

As a short summary of thoughts, we'd have the Paladin with the Gladiator root having combos that change based on their stance, and skills that transition them from one stance to another.

The Warrior's weaponskills have a large recast difference between them (Some at 2.5, some at 5.0, etc) and as momentum/rage is built up, those recast times on the longer ones shorten while expending said momentum / rage.

The Dark Knight uses a more flexible system similar to Monk with Forward / Back transitions between them, each weaponskill similarly weighted for potency but applying different buffs / debuffs. Bloodspiller and Quietus being 'finishers' where the potency changes based on the previous 3 weaponskills. Your aim here is to get the right buffs / debuffs in place and then end it with the strongest finisher you can before the windows expire.

The Gunbreaker's rotates between 2-3 distinct combos, with Powder Charges instead being toggled on and expended to enhance them until they wear out. (The gauge would need to be expanded to hold more as well as increased generation over all).

let me understand how the hell Pld is boring now?! Two type of rotation built into his kit. Fast decision making to substitute Clemency with Holy spirit during requescat buff for safety sacrificing dps. Let's not even talk about aoe... Pld gets even two type of aoe rotation....How that's boring?

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Originally Posted by Kali-ka

This may actually be one of the best suggestions for LD I've seen so kudos. I would even go far to say to have it be a 6-8 second duration and have the damage to healing effect be the ONLY way a DRK could heal itself up during that time for balance.

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thanks, yeah a duration betwen 6-8s will make DRK have enough time to recover all his HP by himself or depending of the situation most of it since DRK will be able to use several edge betwen his attacks to fully recover himself, the recast duration should be proportional to the duration of the buff since at contrary that WAR DRK will be able to fully recover himself much better, the HP you recover can be ajusted too to don't make it so independent of the healers.


my sugestion of WAR:

well this mostly gameplay, many complaing now WAR is to easy and boring (specially for the new animations) so i was remembering when ppl tend to love WAR back in HW what they love so here my sugestion.

enchance the berserk theme:

WAR berserk window was one of the most popular mechanics of the game, triple fell cleave and the fell cleave meme was all around so i suggest bring that back.

gauge:

WAR no longer have skills that use gauge, fell cleave/decimate/upheaval and onslaught no longer cost gauge, instead this skills produce gauge to a maximun of 100, each skills grants a certain number of gauge so it takes betwen 60-90s to fill the gauge on optimal gameplay (i leave everyone how much they will love to have inner release), WAR will have a skill to build gauge during downtimes.

fell cleave/decimate: need 5 deliverance stacks to being used, each combo grant a certain number of stacks, both skills grant rage gauge.

upheaval: mostly unchanged, grants rage gauge.

onslaught: get same threatment of plunge and equivalent, the skill can grant rage gauge or a stack of deliverance to add some management here too.

infuriated: grants 5 stacks of deliverance, the rest is the same (note: meaby have a maximun of 10 stacks to add some flexibility and avoid overcaping, can be represent as a secondary bar under rage one.

inner release: can only be used at 100% rage gauge, under inner release every WAR skill get a animation and potency upgrade, path combo, eye combo, upheaval ect ect, under inner release each GCD grants 1 deliverance stack.

note: inner release can have a recast timer to have better control of the aligment with raids buffs and have a small surplus of rage to don't make the job excesively complicated to manage similar to requiem cast system.

unchained rage: works as a finisher of inner release, if 3 fell cleaves/inner chaos are used under inner release unchained rage becomes feller cleave (lol) dealing masive single target damage, if 3 decimates/chaotic cyclone are used under inner release unchained rage become fissure dealing big aoe damage.

storm eye:no longer need to be used as part of a combo so you can use it when you need it making it easy to have it early on aoe situations (tentative).


resume: WAR will work like now bulding stacks with his combos (keeping eye buff) and (meaby) onslaught as fell cleave/decimate(with they respective upgrades) and upheaval grant rage to the gauge, under inner release every skill with have a animation upgrade and you objetive is use all you kit to land 3 fell cleaves or 3 decimates to activate the respective action with unchained rage (meaby reduce fellcleave needed to 2 depending of how tight the window is but still able to land 3), the potency of the inner release window will be high but not excesively high so WAR is not excesively dependent of raid buffs windows and get to powerfull and make it more easily to balance him dps wise.

all i say im not a WAR main since 3.0 so everyone are free to think this sugestion is trash and dislike it ^^

i think thats all my contributions for tanks, im not fan of making this stuff and probably never make one of this again so thanks for reading both WAR and DRK posts.

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Originally Posted by aqskerorokero

let me understand how the hell Pld is boring now?! Two type of rotation built into his kit. Fast decision making to substitute Clemency with Holy spirit during requescat buff for safety sacrificing dps. Let's not even talk about aoe... Pld gets even two type of aoe rotation....How that's boring?

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Calm down there buddy, it's personal opinion like I said. Even with 2 combo enders, 2 spam windows (although technically 3 if you count holy circle, spirit, and atonement) its still spamming 1 button in those windows, as is it's "additional" aoe rotation is still 1 button ending with another (confiteor). The PLD rotation to me feels way too samey.

Now, by comparison, I'm not saying that the other 3 tanks are that much more exciting, I just enjoy playing them more than PLD. And this is coming from someone who raided on PLD back in the orignal run of coil when it was actually 123, but you only had 1 other option. DRK is arguably more boring but I like the opener much more (probably my favorite opener of the 4 tanks) and even though it has only 1 real single target rotation, the OGCDs make it feel a tad bit better. WAR always felt good to me, despite needing some improvements here and there, I raided on WAR from 3.0 through 4.0 and it doesn't feel much less fun than it did back then. And GNB being my tank of choice now because even though it only has 2 single target rotations, they feel good to do and it flows better than PLD.

Small suggestion as I don't have too much time to post more thoughts, but the more that I play DRK (progging through Savage atm) the more that I recognise that the blood gauge doesn't really fit it's overall design very well. This could possibly be that it doesn't fit what I think DRK's design should be, but it still seems almost...tacked on? One idea I had was to allow EoS and FoS to generate a stack of a new resource similar to how cartridges work for GNB, and allow that resource to be used for bloodspillers etc. This would seperate WAR and DRK a bit more. (Assuming we would get rid of Delirium in the process)

There's a lot wrong with the tank design, half of which comes from skills like rampart, where every tank needed to match that, along with not making cohesive enough skill sets to match the jobs original theme. so instead they took basic MMO mechanics from all roles/classes, and gave a bit of each to everyone. (Such as how they gave every job a DoT.)
One last feature isnt skill sets, but how every job goes through pretty much the same pattern of job quests. (This is less important, but is a bit disappointing.)

WAR is basically FF5 berserker with the FFXI left overs. (The name Warrior is not to be confused with the Fighter/Warrior/Knight jobs of old FFs, those were different jobs)
Considering it started from a semi pirate class, I feel MRD should have gone Viking instead.

That put to the side, berserk making WAR going into a rampage of spamming the same skill is pretty much as close as you can get to the actual berserk skill of FF5.
Over all, WAR is a bit of a mess when it comes to its skills/mechanics matching its original theme as a barbarian. Because of this, mixed with lack of prior FF options, im going to save WAR for semi-last, and return to it.

PLD is basically the FF1 Fighter>Knight, FF3 Knight (some FF3 magic knight themes), FF4 Knight (called PLD in the US to make it stand out from Dark Knight. Otherwise it would be weird if Dark Knight upgraded to Knight) FF5 Knight/Warrior, FF11 Knight (called PLD in the US)
Normally PLDs white magic is what makes it stand out, compared to the other strong melee types who can take strong physical hits decently. But due to game design, this isnt a very good feature, PLUS the possibility of future tanks (we wont get) that could use this for their own flavor.
So going with what we got, Sheltron/Shield mechanics seem to be best, since PLD is the only shield user for some reason. (This is for theme)

DRK's primary mechanic that is shared in all games, is to sacrifice HP to deal damage in a situational way. Be it adding more damage. Damage that ignore defense. Damage that is ranged (the most common) or damage that is AoE. (One of the few melees with AoE in most FF games)
There's 2 different ways to go about this, but changing it slightly.
(1) The only HP sacrifice is to TBN, lose 5% HP, to gain ~20+% hp shield. (This woulda been fine in HW/SB, but with current numbers, this isnt as effective)
(2) Abilities cost HP, but with darkside up, you convert the HP cost to MP. If you're out of MP, HP is lost instead. (But if darkside is still up, the damage gained is lowered slightly)

2 being better suited for DRKs main themes.
(Side Note: Id use the blood gauge instead of MP. MP seems kinda dumb when you have blood. Also MP usage as a mechanic is better suited for another tank. (That we wont get.))


GNB doesnt have much of a theme to work with from prior titles. So its kinda free to be w/e. I would personally go with more of a Rune Fencer/Runic Knight kinda build/style. (And a story about how they upgraded from being runic knights prior)

With the games current tanks in mind ONLY, this leaves mitigation mechanic themes for WAR and GNB.

WAR seems to be the stock standard physical armor tank. Since RNG block design went to PLD, and temp HP went to DRK.
I would focus more on the berserk system, and trying to keep your "rage" up as much as possible, w/o actually hitting the max 100 "rage". (Sorry for lack of better word) Once its a 100, you berserk. You have inner Release, which is best suited to stack with berserk, so you ideally dont berserk until inner release is up.
So I'd design WARs mitigation to be enhanced when your rage is at higher numbers. (This applies to all mitigation tools)
Hitting something hard (fell cleave) helps alleviate your anger, so WAR would be similar to what it is now.
Holmgang would be replaced with something more Berserk feeling. (kind of like living dead, except you can only spam one skill once in walking dead/zerk) but off hand im not sure how to balance this, so as nto to be too good of a DPS increase, so its not just used as soon as the battle starts, and on CD. (Only methods I can think of, require rebuilding how tanking works for all tanks, closer to WoWs design)

GNB I can only think of parry, for the fencer theme, and some sorta elemental shields for magic dmg. (currently DRKs theme... dunno why)
I honestly care very little about GNB, so I wont really bother theorizing ideas for it, when I feel so many more jobs can use the ideas I have thought up.

Back to PLD, its mostly fine as is, with the exception its filler mitigation doesnt incorporate blocking more.
Its MP is used offensively, rather than defensively, which I feel it should have had Protect/Shell as anti tank buster skills. (they only last a few seconds)
None of its skills should have been -X% of an enemies attacks, so as to balance the other methods of mitigation better. (such as absorbing dmg with blood bath. its not effective as mitigation, due to PLD making -dmg% too good by comparison)
Shields block dmg based on block strength. (which acts like their own defense) NOT a % of the enemies dmg!!!

DRK being the HP tank is fine, we dont need to add magic def/parry/eva tanking to DRK. DRK should revolve around HP. (this was mostly explained already)

This leaves room for a lot of future tank ideas, w/o stacking them on the current tanks we have.
Such as a tank built around a convalescence type of mechanic. Self healing/absorbing tank. Evasion tank (this requires the biggest change to how tanking is handled). and some other mechanics i mentioned in other threads, where i listed every possible method of mitigating dmg in unique ways. (MMOs have only scratched probably half of whats possible, maybe less)

Lastly, the difference in the tanks should be based on;
(1) what is the bare minimum required for a fight? now add 1 extra option to each tank, for one of the requirements. (example: 3 magical tank busters, 3 physical. all tanks can handle 2 magical, but only one can hand the 3rd, while the same for physical. tank swapping effectively also handles this, but it helps make tanks "feel" a bit more unique. Other types of dmg are possible, but again requires some changes to combat design)
(2) Ratio of "Threat", "Filler Mitigation", "TB/invuln mitigation", "CC/support", and "DPS" being roughly equally capable, but different in difficulty to perform. (Example: 1 tank generates threat easily, so easily, they never even look at the threat. But they have to actively maintain mechanics to keep their basic suitability up, more so than other tanks. Another tank survives rather easily, only has to watch TBs, but spends most of the fight fighting to keep threat up.)

Once all of that is redesigned, THEN we can attempt to really fix whats going on with the tanks atm.

Otherwise, we're just adding band-aid fixes. With superfluous differences, like Sentinel vs Vengeance.
(Side note, we lack a lowered GCD tank, which I feel is better suited for 1hander tanks. Plus a DNC like tank, which does less direct dmg, but enhances the DPS of the other tank.)
Plus going into details on my opinions, followed by further opinions i hold, would take multiple pages worth of text. I've already typed up a lot, and said so little.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

Do we actually need invuln moves. Could be more unique by taking those away. Instead of Living Dead you could have a super-TBN (long recast hp barrier worth 50% of max hp). and superbolide could, idk, set hp to 100% (full heal) but place a debuff on you that reduces heals received after that by 50% for some duration so there's some drawback to your self benediction.

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Pretty much agree. BUT, if we're to ever have an evasion tank, invulns would help balance out an evasion tank. (yet again, requires a lot of changes. plus my eva tank isnt some speedy thf or nin style job)
But if no evasion tank, i say get rid of most invulns, and just make them very potent mitigation, that still allows for death.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

DRK I think should be more focused on drains, I’d totally overhaul it because right now it is dark in name alone. Like calling the move shadow wall doesn’t make it any different from sentinel. But I’d try and keep some of the themes in place. For example the blackest night could become drain, absorb 500 potency of damage from the opponent restoring 25% of the DRKs HP, HP over the maximum is restored as a shield. Shadow wall could become absorb power, decrease the enemies damage dealt by 15% while reducing your damage taken by 15%. I’d just like to see some actual dark themed moves on dark knight, and draining like a vampire fits the bill (having more personal hp drains would also make living dead more viable as a move).

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Absorb mechanics do seem to fit DRK thematically the best, but realistically, thats not always a DRK specialty.
Its been far more common in BLM.
Over all, If I were to give a tank the absorb theme, its hard not to think of the "Black Magic Knight" as the best candidate, which I feel is uneeded with the temp HP build I feel is best suited for DRK. (To fit the -hp mechanic only DRK has)
But I guess a Sorcerer/Mystic Knight could be next with an "Absorb Blade"/"En-Absorb" spell. (Which I said was closer to that of GNB. Yet again, GNB seems to just be a mixture of things, rather than having an identiy, which is why I hate it lol.)

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

The Warrior's weaponskills have a large recast difference between them (Some at 2.5, some at 5.0, etc) and as momentum/rage is built up, those recast times on the longer ones shorten while expending said momentum / rage.

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I actually felt this way on the rage spenders. They can be performed at 0 rage, but have much higher GCDs as penalties. (To increase the feel of a large 2handed weapon)

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

Do we actually need invuln moves. Could be more unique by taking those away. Instead of Living Dead you could have a super-TBN (long recast hp barrier worth 50% of max hp). and superbolide could, idk, set hp to 100% (full heal) but place a debuff on you that reduces heals received after that by 50% for some duration so there's some drawback to your self benediction.

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It would be best to just get rid of the invulnerability cooldowns and never have anything like them in the game again. They are a balance pit, any time or effort trying to balance them(while still keeping them unique) would be wasted.

The 30% damage reduction cooldowns could also be removed.

The first step towards "diversifying tanks" would be to remove the abilities that are too similar or greatly upsets the balance between them.

Without trying to start an argument, but is part of this thread's purpose to discuss whether tank defensive abilities need diversifying at all? It seems like it would be nigh impossible to balance tanks effectively if they differentiate the defensive cooldowns too much, especially when it comes to fights like say, E2S. That fight (at matching ilvl) demands two defensive cooldowns for very similar defensive values per TB, or else one of the tanks just gets smeared and a healer has to cover for them. You already have issues like Vengeance for WAR practically forcing them (slightly exaggerating) to be MT or risk losing out on damage, in a role slot that already only has 2 per boss in your standard 8 man content.

Wouldn't it be easier to make them more diverse in their offensive abilities instead? Being a few hundred DPS behind the meta tank isn't even close to a death sentence, but if your mitigation isn't up to the task your class becomes an extra healer stressor at best and a liability at worst, this reasoning feels like it's a large part of the reason tanks are currently balanced so well. I can swap between all four of them on basically any of the Savage fights, some are more optimal than others on certain fights, and PLD/GNB outshine DRK/WAR on damage by a few hundred DPS right now, but the difference is so little nobody cares what you play as. Despite this, the tanks feel pretty diverse in practice, even if not on paper. GNB is high APM rotation that plays out almost exactly like a DPS's full rotation, they're the OGCD kings of the tank and you feel it during the fight (for better and worse). PLD is as strict a rotation as you can get, which means it's pretty punishing if you mess up, but the actual rotation is a slow and steady pace, and the ability to do BLM levels of on demand movement with your instant cast window is a true feeling of freedom (not to mention the ability to basically solo leveling dungeons once you get Clemency). WAR is the stout and simple basic tank you'd find in most MMOs, but with the added interest in this game of having absolutely massive burst damage. You may not care for the simple playstyle, but it's generally important to have one class that's just a little bit more basic than the others in your MMO. The DPS have SAM, the tanks have WAR, the healers have WHM. That's not to say the skill ceiling isn't as high for these classes as others, but the skill floor is definitely lowered. DRK I have the least experience with and I admit most on this forum seem to consider it the most "problematic" of the tanks, but speaking purely from a balance perspective: there is no shortage. Tanks are balanced well right now, diverse defensives will threaten that unless the dev team designs every boss with all the tanks in mind (never going to happen).

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Originally Posted by Yrantis

Without trying to start an argument, but is part of this thread's purpose to discuss whether tank defensive abilities need diversifying at all?

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No. The assumption is that tanks do need diversity and that balance is possible despite diversity. If you would like to argue that point, feel free to do so elsewhere. This thread is, as per its title, about Diversifying Tanks.

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Originally Posted by Yrantis

Thanks for clarifying, that's why I wanted to ask. Although I never said no diversity at all just to be clear. Still, I'll avoid de-railing the topic.

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I feel that while I perhaps clarified the general point, I did a poor job of conveying specifics. I most likely spoke in haste out of seeing so many topics derailed at the stage of roughly defined principle ("illusion of choice", etc) before they've even had a chance to put those principles in useful context.

Let this be my actual clarification instead.

How much you diversify according to mitigation cooldowns or even entirely new systems of mitigation -- there could be not a single CD, instead basing everything on equal parts gauge resources, secondary gauge resources built from the primary resource being spent, and MP -- is up to you. If you can manage to make them feel sufficiently different while leaving the mitigation cooldowns mostly the same, that's fine. But the thread's premise is that there is room within even tight balance to differentiate them in nearly ever regard except practical capacity. That is to say they should be capable of surviving the same core hits with little to no supporting shields, putting out roughly the same rDPS (including by means that are hard to quantify), etc, but how they do so should feel relatively distinct insofar as is needed to make the overall kits each feel cohesive and compelling.

Without a doubt, tanks are the most balanced they've ever been, and that's saying a lot given that they were already very tightly balanced by most MMOs' standards in late SB. And I'd agree that's something to hold on to. I just ask that you give the posts the benefit of the doubt that, even if the ideas presented may be many shades of pipedream for the moment, there exists an iteration as compelling as what we seek that can nonetheless remain balanced, and that it's worth working towards such an iteration.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

No. The assumption is that tanks do need diversity and that balance is possible despite diversity. If you would like to argue that point, feel free to do so elsewhere. This thread is, as per its title, Diversifying Tanks.

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Thanks for clarifying, that's why I wanted to ask. Although I never said no diversity at all just to be clear. Still, I'll avoid de-railing the topic.

The homogenization of jobs and dumbing down of skill sets is honestly not good for the game. It may feel good in the short term, but in long term you’ll be seeing more extreme versions of burn out.

while i think GNB,PLD and WAR are kinda good for there identity
Dark really needs some identity

and i would like some the jobs to get some flare to there abilities like Sentinel,Shadow wall.
one of the things i was hoping for Drk was Blood price to basically be the third CD
10% damage mitigation 5-10 blood per hit instead of dark mind

i do think Warrior should have a little bit of healing on chaos moves like over power and steel cyclone did pre shb since self healing is warriors thing

Toward the idea of diversifying: I feel like the basis for PLD is already there: having it interact with its magic side more often. PLD is a pretty unique tank in its ability to DPS at range (while moving) for brief periods, so having the ability to use spells a little bit more often might give them a sort of caster tank feel. The trouble I can't think of how to get around on PLD is that its rotation is so strict I'm not sure where you'd add the extra spells at, maybe OGCDs? I do think their current OGCD strike that recovers mana is pretty pointless, and its requirement for high HP for full damage just makes it a functionally worse version of other tank equivalents, Blasting Zone is sorta iconic for GNB, but both Upheaval on WAR and Spirits Within could go without much fuss I'd imagine (provided of course they are replaced by other skills).

As for GNB, I must admit--though I do love the class--that I thought when it was releasing Gnashing Fang was going to be affected more significantly by SkS (being a weaponskill with a special cooldown), that it'd let me get enough SkS to get it down to say: 15 seconds or so, so you could do 2 in the same window you do 1 now, but it only affects it by a pretty useless amount. Changing that would put GNB as the seriously active class period, not just for tanks, and with NIN getting a rework to put Mudras on the GCD it would cement it as the APM class (it already has high APM, so some may not like the idea of adding more), and would give one of the tanks a purpose in stacking very heavy skill speed. As it is now...SkS affecting Gnashing Fang only serves to be a pain more than anything else.

Lots of cool ideas in this thread. And even more to explore. But, since I could spend all day writing class ideas, I'll keep my ideas short, without gory details.

- I think the Invulns should actually be homogenized. Their effect is just too potent for any real diversity that feels good. Give Hallowed Ground a more generic name and make it a role action.
- Rampart should then be removed from role actions, and each tank gets a unique version.
- Sentinel/Shadow Wall/Vengeance/Nebula should all be made more unique, but with one caveat: either all of them should be tied to the class's dps, or none of them. Vengeance being any part of WAR's dps is problematic when the others aren't. If they all are, you still have the issue with a tank needs to be MT to do full dps, though. But at least it's universal, and they all have equal claim on MT being good for them.
- As for making defensive abilities unique to the class, I would follow it along these lines: WAR are all about increasing max hp temporarily, with a corresponding buff to all incoming healing; DRK are all about getting some % of max hp as shields (or reducing incoming magic damage by some %, but I think this aspect could be dropped); PLD are all about reducing incoming damage by some %; GNB actually has no identity--it gets a little bit from each of the other tanks, which is unfortunate--but the names are all astronomy related in some way, or Heart related? Really not sure what you could do to give them a unique feel with defensive cooldowns.
- Offensively, I think PLD and GNB are in a really good place. As a PLD main, the only thing I'm not super hot on is how much spamming we do, but eh.
- I honestly think DRK plays mostly fine, too. I like the idea of changing Darkside to a Haste buff, as it makes Blood Weapon's current timer less problematic. Or they could just give Blood Weapon an 11 second duration.
- I also think Abyssal Drain is cool, but could use some polish. In single target situations, it's just a bit of oGCD damage and a negligible heal. In big dungeon pulls, it's decent oGCD AoE damage, and a big heal. But the recast is so long, that the heal is really just a couple seconds of breathing room at best. Also, a self-heal goes against the idea that DRK use a % of max health as shields. I'd change it from a heal to a shield (which probably means changing from a low amount per enemy hit, to a bigger amount regardless of how many enemies get hit), and maybe change AD to a Spell on the GCD (with a cast time?) but has a mana cost? Kinda like DRK's version of a Clemency? Like, it's not part of your normal rotation, but an "oh shit" button? All those question marks mean I don't know if this is actually a good idea, but it is *an* idea.
- Beast Gauge and Blood Gauge being identical, though, is a big issue. One of these needs to change. I think it should be WAR's Beast Gauge, as Blood Gauge currently feels thematic for DRK as their offense seems to be all about keeping their resources spent, so as not to overcap.
- Rework WAR so it's still about these big heavy hits, but rather than building and spending Beast Gauge, it's about keeping its "Berserk" buffs up, which is done by filling Beast Gauge to 100. Maybe using Storm's Path or Mythril Tempest as part of a combo while your "Berserk" buffs are up could allow you to do the big hit--Fell Cleave or Decimate--as the combo finisher. Or it could open up a new big-hitting combo (ie Inner Beast -> Fell Cleave -> Inner Chaos from Storm's Path or Steel Cyclone -> Decimate -> Chaos Cyclone from Mythril Tempest).

Getting into some gory details here, but:

- when you fill your Beast Gauge to 100 or more, it is reduced by 100 and your "Berserk" buffs are refreshed. This language is specific for a reason: overcapping would not be an issue. If, for example, you hit 110 Beast Gauge, you would drop to 10 Beast Gauge and refresh your buffs.
- the "Berserk" buffs could be a few different buffs. Berserk would obviously be one (which would need to change for balance reasons--maybe just a bonus to Crit and/or a Haste buff), and maybe that's the only one required for Path or Tempest to get you to the big hit. Storm's Eye could be another. Maybe even Thrill of Battle, but has its % toned down (though you would need a corresponding % buff to incoming healing to be baseline, not a level 78 trait), at which point a few of your defensive abilities would just be improving Thrill of Battle to higher percentages? You could even require the other buffs to have Berserk up to have any effect.
- This would also require Inner Release to be divorced from Berserk. Which is fine, because the class would have lost its "burst window" ability, and Inner Release could be that. It could just allow you to use your Big Hit (or start your Big Hit combo) whenever you want. Or give auto Crit/DHits. But this would not be something that gets refreshed by filling up your Beast Gauge.
- both the "Berserk" buff durations and the rate at which Beast Gauge is gained would need to be addressed. Sort of like MNK, you should have a fair amount of wiggle room for refreshing your buffs

It seems that generally the designs for Paladin and Gunbreaker are quite well received, they're the least complained about tanks, and most complaints about Gunbreaker are related to the sound effects change that happened some time ago. The real controversial tanks that people feel are heavily homogenized are Warrior and Dark Knight, and its quite obvious the biggest problem here is new Delirium.

On a surface level I understand the purpose of new Delirium: It's a regular burst phase not based around pooling MP for raid buffs, and pressing 5 Bloodspillers in a row helps break the repetitive 1-2-3 gameplay of Souleater combo that has plagued the class since Stormblood. The issue is, even if a spammy phase was what the developers wanted to add... why does it have to "5 gcds every 90 seconds" just like Inner Release? It happens too infrequently to successfully break the monotony of spamming your combo, and because it's the same gcd 5 times, it ends up feeling monotonous itself, specially because Bloodspillers animation is clearly not designed to look good when spammed! I feel like something as simple as "Delirium is every 60 seconds and is only 3 gcds long, Blood Weapon is every 40 seconds" would have given Dark Knight a more distinct feeling and addressed the 1-2-3 problem better (given that they seem committed to not giving DRK a secondary combo ender for DPS for whatever reason). In addition, the cooldowns on Dark Knight's non-Edge of Shadow offensive cds are way too long, and further contribute to those lengthy windows where you have nothing to do besides press 123. Another DRK rework is something we're unlikely to see for another 2 years, but switching around the cooldowns and durations of certain skills to make the class feel more active is not beyond the scope of a major patch. If Dark Knight's identity is to revolve around a low button count GCD rotation with plenty of off-gcds, we need shorter cooldowns on the off-gcds.

Warrior is a bit more of a problem to diversify away from Dark Knight largely because it seems they intend for it to be an inherently simpler class. It seems Warrior's identity is meant to tie heavily to GCD skills, sorts of like Black Mage or even Monk. If that's the case then Warrior would benefit heavily from having a higher diversity of weaponskills. I think the core foundations as they are aren't too bad, but perhaps 1 or 2 more skills on the GCD could serve to differentiate Warrior from Dark Knight further, albeit I'm not sure what form those skills could take. I don't want to say "add a dot" because that feels extremely unimaginative and is just a timer to track, so perhaps Warrior's identity will require another expansion to flesh out.

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Originally Posted by Yrantis

Without trying to start an argument, but is part of this thread's purpose to discuss whether tank defensive abilities need diversifying at all? It seems like it would be nigh impossible to balance tanks effectively if they differentiate the defensive cooldowns too much, especially when it comes to fights like say, E2S. That fight (at matching ilvl) demands two defensive cooldowns for very similar defensive values per TB, or else one of the tanks just gets smeared and a healer has to cover for them. You already have issues like Vengeance for WAR practically forcing them (slightly exaggerating) to be MT or risk losing out on damage, in a role slot that already only has 2 per boss in your standard 8 man content.

Wouldn't it be easier to make them more diverse in their offensive abilities instead? Being a few hundred DPS behind the meta tank isn't even close to a death sentence, but if your mitigation isn't up to the task your class becomes an extra healer stressor at best and a liability at worst,

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You could diversify the defencsive toolkits quite substantially just be emphasizing more the differences between physical and magical damage and varying the levels of effectiveness accordingly.

If you look back to HW Paladin was a rahter weak magic damage tank but a real strong physical damage tank. DRK was a rather weak physical tank but a real strong magical tank and warrior was kinda middle of the road with both. this worked quite well and was fine right up until the devs went and made an entire tier of content almost exclusively magic damage...

the jobs having different defensive capabilites wasn't a problem. the problem was the badly designed content.

had the content been designed better it wouldn't have been an issue. sure there would have been powerful magic damage attacks that would have caused a paladin tank some real pain and maybe taxed the healers a little bit more. but had that same encounter had some physical attacks of equal power that paladin tank would then have shrugged them off and granted the healers some extra breathing room. as such it would have balanced itself out.

Darknights would have been the opposite way around and warriors would have been more or less taking consistant damage throughout the enocunter.. thus every job despite having differing defensive capabilites would be viable..

not every job needs to be equally good at everything...

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Originally Posted by Dzian

You could diversify the defencsive toolkits quite substantially just be emphasizing more the differences between physical and magical damage and varying the levels of effectiveness accordingly.

If you look back to HW Paladin was a rahter weak magic damage tank but a real strong physical damage tank. DRK was a rather weak physical tank but a real strong magical tank and warrior was kinda middle of the road with both. this worked quite well and was fine right up until the devs went and made an entire tier of content almost exclusively magic damage...

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I mean, what you mean by this is "it worked quite well for Ravana Ex and that's it". Paladin was an atrocious class in Heavensward, and it wasn't just the weakness of its magic mitigation that made it so. PLD had no AoE, would run out of cooldowns in almost every raid, it had worse party defensive utility than DRK and WAR (Divine Veil couldn't compete with Reprisal, Delirium and Storm's Path), extremely bad TP sustain while both DRK and WAR had nearly infinite TP, awful aggro generation that meant it had more trouble than the other tanks staying in DPS stance and also, its DPS was miles behind the other tanks. Heavensward Paladin is a very bad example to use if you want to support a design of "not all tanks should be good at everything", because Heavensward had two tanks that were good at nearly everything and one tank that was only unique in being almost completely dysfunctional in all content.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

not every job needs to be equally good at everything...

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Except they do, because this game is based on linear progression, there is only one piece of relevant content in any given patch and if a job isn’t viable for that content then it will be excluded, like PLD was in Gordias.

If the game had more content and gear came from more places then maybe having different specialties could be viable.

For example, if there was one fight that focused on physical damage and high raid wide damage with a lenient dps check making utility jobs and a physical tank better and dropped gear for say sch, pld and brd, then there was another fight that focused on magical damage and was more about tight dps checks than dealing with incoming damage that dropped gear for drk, whm and sam, and both fights dropped equal ilvl gear but for different jobs, then it wouldn’t matter that PLD isn’t viable for the second fight because PLD doesn’t get any rewards from the second fight, if you’re trying to gear a PLD you’d do the first fight. If you wanted to do the second fight then you’d play DRK.

But that’s not how the game is setup, if you want PLD gear, you do the current savage along with every other job, if PLD isn’t viable for the current savage then sucks to be you.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Except they do, because this game is based on linear progression, there is only one piece of relevant content in any given patch and if a job isn’t viable for that content then it will be excluded, like PLD was in Gordias.

If the game had more content and gear came from more places then maybe having different specialties could be viable.

For example, if there was one fight that focused on physical damage and high raid wide damage with a lenient dps check making utility jobs and a physical tank better and dropped gear for say sch, pld and brd, then there was another fight that focused on magical damage and was more about tight dps checks than dealing with incoming damage that dropped gear for drk, whm and sam, and both fights dropped equal ilvl gear but for different jobs, then it wouldn’t matter that PLD isn’t viable for the second fight because PLD doesn’t get any rewards from the second fight, if you’re trying to gear a PLD you’d do the first fight. If you wanted to do the second fight then you’d play DRK.

But that’s not how the game is setup, if you want PLD gear, you do the current savage along with every other job, if PLD isn’t viable for the current savage then sucks to be you.

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i wasnt implying seperate content just a bit of divesity in mechanics and attacks.. you could quite easily have a boss throw physical and magical attacks at you throughout the same encounter.

so instead of having every tank be great at everything youd hive variety and diversity
pld might get hurt by attack a but shrug off attack b a few seconds later..
drks might shrug off attack a but get smashed by attack b...

so while theyd have different strengths and weakness both would still be viable in the same content

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Originally Posted by Dzian

i wasnt implying seperate content just a bit of divesity in mechanics and attacks.. you could quite easily have a boss throw physical and magical attacks at you throughout the same encounter.

so instead of having every tank be great at everything youd hive variety and diversity
pld might get hurt by attack a but shrug off attack b a few seconds later..
drks might shrug off attack a but get smashed by attack b...

so while theyd have different strengths and weakness both would still be viable in the same content

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Technically, the constraints would still be much tighter than that example would lead one to believe. Remember, we don't use a job except when it's competitive, and given that we can swap out the MT at a moment's notice, there is no way the PLD would ever be hit by Attack A nor DRK by Attack B. You'd have to balance, then, around the pair. And if each is specialized towards some given attack and neither is force to take an attack they are ill-adapted for, you'd only have one real strength: PLD's vs. B and DRK's vs. A, for a consistent high sturdiness. The net change from normal play, then, will just be a loss in flexibility.

This is, of course, just a consequence of the 2/4/2 setup in 8-man content. Should that vary, we'd have a whole different ballpark to balance around.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

This is, of course, just a consequence of the 2/4/2 setup in 8-man content. Should that vary, we'd have a whole different ballpark to balance around.

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I see comments like this and it makes me think: would this game be more interesting if dps wasn't a role? Just Tanks and Healers? Maybe you could have a "Support" role, which can have some buffs/debuffs? Or is that just silly?

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Originally Posted by waterboytkd

I see comments like this and it makes me think: would this game be more interesting if dps wasn't a role? Just Tanks and Healers? Maybe you could have a "Support" role, which can have some buffs/debuffs? Or is that just silly?

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You touch on a funny point about FFXIV: everybody is actually a DPS in disguise, and that's because of the consistency of the fights in this game. Extra mitigation does absolutely nothing for you in a game with 100% predictable damage, and healing someone at full health does nothing, so what do you do the other 80% of the fight when the boss isn't specifically murdering someone? You DPS. They took away tank aggro so they could focus more on DPS, and while they did increase the amount of healing required this tier, it's still entirely predictable damage, meaning once you learn to play around it...you go back to DPSing when you don't need to heal. We are in fact, all DPS classes, but tanks add defensive CDs and position the boss as additional duties, while healers respond to specific, predictable damage outputs (once the fight is learned optimally of course, people take damage they shouldn't all the time when learning).

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Originally Posted by waterboytkd

I see comments like this and it makes me think: would this game be more interesting if dps wasn't a role? Just Tanks and Healers? Maybe you could have a "Support" role, which can have some buffs/debuffs? Or is that just silly?

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To me, it begs less the question of "What if there were no DPS" than "What if DPS could actually do more than just stand in the right places while gradually depleting the boss's HP?" That in turn begs the question, "What if there was more to the game than just standing in the right places, hitting buttons when their cues come up, and depleting the boss's HP?"

Similarly, I've always been under the impression that a great many controversies could have been spared and opportunities taken if the Healer role had just been named Support to begin with (with still many degrees of supportiveness varying across all roles atop that).

Something people are misunderstanding here, is that some people want "This tank shouldnt be good at the fight, and not allowed to come". (Ive met those kinds of crazy)
BUT what some of us are trying to say, is what about giving each tank 1 unique bonus, that none of the other tanks bring, PLUS making each fight benefit from that bonus. (These arent requirements. all tanks meet the requirements)

PLD had cover in HW, but it just wasnt useful enough for cheesing mechanics. But in SB cover allowed for some really useful cheesing.
PLD has had its antipushback, but it wasnt a feature that actually helpped with uptime until SB.

DRK offered the ability to lower a bosses INT (In HW) but over all, wasnt as good as 2 WARs. (You were better off with 2 WARs for both DPS and mitigation) DRK was only liked, because it was closer to WAR than PLD was. It's "bonus" was never actually a real bonus.

PLDs bonuses never actually helped. (excluding semi helping in A11S, but a WAR still did it better)

So if you instead make a boss truly benefit from each of the tanks specialties, then it doesnt matter which tank you leave out, you're still missing out on a rather useful bonus.
(Its still technically possible to quantify which bonus is more useful, based on maximum DPS possibilities, but most ppl will argue up and down which is the best strat, when its that much harder to quantify in DPS)

This is closer to what people are talking about, when they want diversity.
The other is just something like aesthetic changes, that barely matter. Such as the difference between a temp HP shield like TBN, vs max HP increase with a heal, like Thrill of Battle. They essentially equate the same thing. (But to be fair, Thrill of Battle and TBN can be pushed further, with other mechanics, to differentiate them further. Such as abilities being based on max HP, which dont help a DRK with TBN. But TBN doesnt have to be based on ur max HP, but another resource, which can be played with. There's ways to make these skills do more, and interact with other skills. (Thrill should have gone to DRK, and TBN should have gone to WAR, based on invulns. But imo, the invulns should have swapped, based on some other mechanics you could have done.)

DRK drops to 1 HP in walking dead. If DRK had WARs toolkit...
Bloodbath of HW heals up some of the HP. Tank stance adds how much you're healed for, with the ability to remove dmg penalty (prior to SB), equilibrium, inner beast/steel for aoe healing, and thrill acts as a heal.
These skills work better with LD than they do with WAR.
WARs drops to 1 HP like DRK, but doesnt need healed to max. WAR doesnt actually need healed at all. If WAR had TBN, it would be enough to survive auto attacks for awhile on a boss, even at 1hp. Temp HP shields also work with GNB, when it drops to 1hp, it could still have its hp shields, as its invuln doesnt effect them.
But the tank that gets TBN is DRK...
GNB sacrifices its HP for a gain... sounds very DRKish to me... and yet, because of server ticks, GNB got a regen, instead of a shield for its invuln.

SE doesnt exsactly care about making tanks. (or healers) they are just simplified DPS, and thats all they will remain to SE.

At this point. What I think is that the "role skills" should all be tanking related. I know its an unpopular opinion but none of the abilities involving mitigation are in any way unique outside of the 15-25s CD ones.

Things like Ramp, Sentinel, HG, etc just all be generic mitigation CDs and invulns.

And try to work on making the other stuff stand out more. Sadly everything but DRK as an identity at this point (and I appreciate the changes with DRK), I am unsure if down the line DRK won't just be a shadow clone of WAR.

Incoming big post. This would be a pretty major rework for WAR and DRK, with only minor changes to some defensives for PLD and GNB.

Paladin
Paladin Offense
- unchanged
Paladin Defense (all about % based damage reduction)
- Divine Veil becomes 10-15% damage reduction for 5-10 seconds, rather than a shield.
- Passage to Arms: the cone buff changes to “allies in the cone gain your block rate and block strength”, which, at 80, would be 100% rate with 20% (right?) strength. This is a buff for your teammates, though, so maybe give it a 50 Oath Gauge cost. If that’s too steep, maybe a 50 oath cost also reduces the recast to 60s?
- Cover: remove the Oath Gauge cost. This ability is so niche as is.

Warrior
Warrior Offense (now it uses Beast Gauge to keep up its buffs; the big hits have changed Combo Finishers)
- Change Beast Gauge functionality to: whenever you would have 100 or more Beast Gauge, reduced your Beast Gauge by 100, and refresh the duration of Storm’s Path, Storm’s Eye, and Thrill of Battle.
- Storm’s Path no longer restores hp or builds Beast Gauge. It’s now an attack with 100 potency, combo action: Maim or Mythril Tempest, combo potency: 350, combo bonus: gives a 10% haste buff for 30s.
- Storm’s Eye no longer builds Beast Gauge. It’s now an attack with 100 potency, combo action: Maim or Mythril Tempest, combo potency: 350, combo bonus: increases damage dealt by 10% for 30s.
- Thrill of Battle changed to “Increase your max hp by 5%, and restore the amount increased. Increase hp recovery via healing actions on self by 5%. 30s duration. 30s recast.
- Various other Weaponskill potencies are reduced to balance the haste buff from Storm’s Path. Heavy Swing 180, Maim 270, Overpower 120, Mythril Tempest combo 180.
- Gain Inner Beast at level 30 now. Inner Beast no longer costs Beast Gauge, has 100 potency, combo action: Maim, combo potency: 350, combo bonus: increases Beast Gauge by 30, combo bonus: restores own hp, cure potency: 250.
- The Beast Within only affects Maim now. Maim gains combo bonus: increases Beast Gauge by 20.
- Mythril Tempest no longer extends the duration of Storm’s Eye.
- Steel Cyclone no longer costs Beast Gauge, has 100 potency, combo action: Mythril Tempest, combo potency: 220, combo bonus: increases Beast Gauge by 30, combo bonus: restores own hp, cure potency: 250.
- Infuriate’s effect changes to “Execute up to 1 Weaponskill combo without meeting combo prerequisites.” The other aspects of Infuriate (including Nascent Chaos) remain unchanged.
- Inner Beast Mastery changed to “Using Inner Beast allows the immediate use of Fell Cleave.”
- Fell Cleave changes to an oGCD attack with 150-200 potency, and a 1s recast timer.
- Steel Cyclone Mastery changed to “Using Steel Cyclone allows the immediate use of Decimate.”
- Decimate changes to an oGCD attack to all nearby enemies with 50 potency, and a 1s recast timer.
- Onslaught loses its Beast Gauge cost, has its potency increased to 200, and its recast timer increased to 30s.
- Enhance Onslaught is gained at 78, granting a second charge of Onslaught.
- Upheaval loses its Beast Gauge cost.
- Inner Release’s first effect changes to “Allows the execution of Weaponskill combos without meeting combo prerequisites and nullifies Bind, Stun, Sleep, Heavy, and most knockback and draw-in effects.”
- Nascent Chaos now upgrades Inner Beast to Inner Chaos, and Steel Cyclone to Chaos Cyclone. Inner Chaos and Chaos Cyclone would not proc Fell Cleave or Decimate, respectively.
Warrior Defense (now all about using dumb amounts of hp + some self heals; still has some small % based damage reduction)
- Vengeance: Reduces incoming damage by 15%, and restore hp equal to the amount reduced.
- Holmgang: increase Thrill of Battle’s bonuses to 100%, and restores the amount increased, additional effect: Whenever you are dealt damage, restore hp to self equal to the damage dealt.
- Raw Intuition: Increases Thrill of Battle’s bonuses to 25%, and restores the amount increased.
- Shake It Off: Grants Shake It Off to self and nearby party members. Shake It Off effect: whenever you take damage, restore hp equal to 10% of the damage dealt, 10s duration, 90s recast timer. Dispels Vengeance, increasing the amount restored by 5%.
- Nascent Flash can be cast without an ally targeted, but only grants yourself Nascent Flash in that case. Similar in functionality to Dragoon’s Dragon Sight in how it grants Right Eye and Left Eye.

Dark Knight
Dark Knight Offense (dump your resources, don’t overcap)
- Big goal here is to alleviate craziness of opener, while making the later half of each minute a bit more interesting. This is accomplished by moving some of the “generic” oGCD attacks to the GCD, while moving Blood Gauge attacks to the oGCD. The mechanics for restoring MP and increasing Blood Gauge were set to keep DRK at about the same number of Bloodspillers and Edges per minute.
- Swap when Souleater and Carve and Spit are obtained (for thematic reasons).
- Carve and Spit is an attack with 100 potency, combo action: syphon strike, combo potency: 400, combo bonus: grants a barrier to self that absorbs damage equal to 5% of your max hp, combo bonus: increases Blood Gauge by 10.
- Add new ability at level 30, The Black Night. It is functionally identical to The Blackest Night, except the shield is only equal to 10% of your max hp. At level 70, this is upgraded to The Blackest Night.
- Dark Arts now also affects the MP cost of Abyssal Drain and Souleater (more on that below)
- Change Blood Weapon to a stance ability (not exclusive from Grit) that halts passive MP generation, but each Weaponskill and Spell that damages an enemy restores MP (300 MP). After level 66, each Weaponskill and Spell also increases the Blood Gauge by 5.
- Change Abyssal Drain to a Spell on the GCD with a 3000 MP cost. It’s an attack with potency 200 to target and all nearby enemies, Dark Arts potency: 400, additional effect: restore own hp equal to the total amount of damage dealt. Does not interrupt combos.
- Change Souleater to a Weaponskill on the GCD with a 3000 MP cost. It ‘s an attack with 300 potency, Dark Arts potency: 600, additional effect: restore own hp equal to twice the damage dealt. Does not interrupt combos.
- Change Quietus to an oGCD attack with 60 potency to all nearby enemies, 2s recast timer, still costs 50 Blood Gauge.
- Change Bloodspiller to an oGCD attack with 300 potency, 2s recast timer, still costs 50 Blood Gauge.
- Delirium has a new effect: increases to your Blood Gauge are doubled.
Dark Knight Defense (all about Shields, plus the % based damage reduction for magic attacks)
- Add new ability at level 30, The Black Night. It is functionally identical to The Blackest Night, except the shield is only equal to 10% of your max hp. At level 70, this is upgraded to The Blackest Night.
- Shadow Wall: gain a shield equal to 40% of your max hp. Duration 10s.
- Living Dead: Living Dead side remains unchanged. Walking Dead changes to: when Living Dead expires (either by duration or being reduced to 0 hp) gain a shield equal to the amount of hp lost during Living Dead. Shields last 10s.

Gunbreaker
Gunbreaker Offense
- Unchanged
Gunbreaker Defense (I’ll be honest, I don’t really get their theme. It seems like a hodgepodge of the other three--small % based, small shields, some healing over time?)
- To differentiate Nebula from Sentinel, change it to “reduces incoming damage by 15%, additional effect: grants a healing over time effect to self, cure potency: 300, duration 12s.” The HoT effect should be about 20% of your max hp.
- So a Bolide is a brilliant meteor, often one that explodes in a fireball. This makes the “I lose all my hp” part of the ability thematically on point, I guess. But is a 1 minute shorter cooldown worth losing all your hp? Maybe add a healing over time effect to it (600 potency, 15 seconds--this should be about 50% of your max hp).
- To differentiate Heart of Light from Dark Missionary, change Heart of Light to “creates a barrier around self and nearby party members that absorbs damage equal to 10% of max hp. Dispels Brutal Shell, increasing the amount absorbed by 5%.

@waterboytkd; You aren't solving the 'WAR and DRK is spamming 1-2-3 all throughout the fight' problem, which a lot of people are complaining about(refer to page 1 of this thread post #5 http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rsifying-Tanks as I went in-depth as to how to make them more interesting and maybe fun).

However I will agree on DRK having HP based barriers as that is more anti-magic than Dark Mind ever could be(again refer to page 1 of this thread post #4 http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rsifying-Tanks)...

(side tangent; GNB is for 'Gunbreaker' not 'Gunblade')

give DRK debuff skills, increase WAR burst. atm those are the only tanks that feel very similar to eachother to me, though I get that there is alot of similarity with gauges and the same functioning cooldowns. DRK feels like the debuff tank just off of skill name and the way the job quests play out; soul sucking, abyssl draining, enemies being scared and demoralized and so on. WAR the same way seems to be all about their uncontrollable explosive behavior but their damage is the lowest. arguing that it's balanced how it is now with marginal difference is fine, but then there won't be any gameplay difference with only that to work with unless the job is completely changed, or is that not true? defensively WAR is not weak at all so that's not what needs work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

@waterboytkd; You aren't solving the 'WAR and DRK is spamming 1-2-3 all throughout the fight' problem, which a lot of people are complaining about(refer to page 1 of this thread post #5 http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rsifying-Tanks as I went in-depth as to how to make them more interesting and maybe fun).

However I will agree on DRK having HP based barriers as that is more anti-magic than Dark Mind ever could be(again refer to page 1 of this thread post #4 http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rsifying-Tanks)...

(side tangent; GNB is for 'Gunbreaker' not 'Gunblade')

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RIP on Gunblade. I always say that instead of Gunbreaker...I know it's the latter, but I always call it the former for some reason.

So I was not trying to give them multiple full combos like the DPS classes. I liked your suggestion from page 1, but it gave both classes a lot of abilities to have to put on hot bars.

So I was trying to get them "evened out" without going too big on ability bloat. I was also trying to preserve what identity they currently have--WAR being mostly GCD based with very few oGCDs; DRK having the simplest GCD rotation, but a much stronger focus on its oGCDs.

By "evened out", at least for DRK, what I mean is: get DRK to spread out its oGCD use a bit, so the opener isn't so insane (and the start of each subsequent minute) and the later half of each minute is a bit busier. I tried to accomplish that by moving the Blood GCDs to the oGCD (which means you can't start using them until a few GCDs in), and move the 'use on cd' oGCD (CaS, AD) to the GCD, but set them up as utility skills rather than part of the rotations. I was also trying to create a decision point for those abilities with Dark Arts that wasn't going to be one ability always being the best to use. It still kind of is, though: you only use CaS (well, Souleater as I had them swap for thematic/fluff reasons) or AD if you need to self heal, even with DA up. In that way, they're a bit like Clemency.

So I could see working CaS and AD into the single target or AoE rotations, respectively, to liven up the GCDs a bit. Ie, leave Souleater as it currently is (though maybe change the heal to a 5% shield), then make CaS a new combo finisher after Syphon Strike that does something (puts a DoT up, buffs Souleater in a certain way, etc). So you would go 1-2-CaS or 1-2-Soul. Or even make it a 4-hit combo, making DRK unique among the tanks for having the longest base combo.

For AD, you could do something similar, so you go either Unleash-AD or Unleash-Stalwart Soul, or like you suggested, make it a 1-2-3 kind of thing.

For WAR, it was focused more on having various finishers for combos to get buffs up, then it keeps doing its Inner Beast combo to keep the buffs up. 1 new oGCD for both single target and AoE (while also extending the AoE combo by 1 move). Though, with the way I suggested it, both Storm's Path and Eye turn into "fire and forget" abilities that you use at the start of a fight, then never really go back to.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waterboytkd

RIP on Gunblade. I always say that instead of Gunbreaker...I know it's the latter, but I always call it the former for some reason.

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Understandable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waterboytkd

So I was not trying to give them multiple full combos like the DPS classes. I liked your suggestion from page 1, but it gave both classes a lot of abilities to have to put on hot bars.

So I was trying to get them "evened out" without going too big on ability bloat. I was also trying to preserve what identity they currently have--WAR being mostly GCD based with very few oGCDs; DRK having the simplest GCD rotation, but a much stronger focus on its oGCDs.

By "evened out", at least for DRK, what I mean is: get DRK to spread out its oGCD use a bit, so the opener isn't so insane (and the start of each subsequent minute) and the later half of each minute is a bit busier. I tried to accomplish that by moving the Blood GCDs to the oGCD (which means you can't start using them until a few GCDs in), and move the 'use on cd' oGCD (CaS, AD) to the GCD, but set them up as utility skills rather than part of the rotations. I was also trying to create a decision point for those abilities with Dark Arts that wasn't going to be one ability always being the best to use. It still kind of is, though: you only use CaS (well, Souleater as I had them swap for thematic/fluff reasons) or AD if you need to self heal, even with DA up. In that way, they're a bit like Clemency.

So I could see working CaS and AD into the single target or AoE rotations, respectively, to liven up the GCDs a bit. Ie, leave Souleater as it currently is (though maybe change the heal to a 5% shield), then make CaS a new combo finisher after Syphon Strike that does something (puts a DoT up, buffs Souleater in a certain way, etc). So you would go 1-2-CaS or 1-2-Soul. Or even make it a 4-hit combo, making DRK unique among the tanks for having the longest base combo.

For AD, you could do something similar, so you go either Unleash-AD or Unleash-Stalwart Soul, or like you suggested, make it a 1-2-3 kind of thing.

For WAR, it was focused more on having various finishers for combos to get buffs up, then it keeps doing its Inner Beast combo to keep the buffs up. 1 new oGCD for both single target and AoE (while also extending the AoE combo by 1 move). Though, with the way I suggested it, both Storm's Path and Eye turn into "fire and forget" abilities that you use at the start of a fight, then never really go back to.

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This is the part where you just have to give the tanks multiple full combos like a melee they were DPS so that way the monotony becomes less noticeable(DRG and SAM are examples of melee DPS that do this a lot of justice, same with PLD and GNB).

As for Abyssal Drain, the 1-2-3 thing would only work if Unleash and Stalwart Soul were target AoEs like Abyssal Drain.

But the TL;DR version is that I believe having more oGCDs is raising the skill floor and having more GCDs is raising the skill ceiling, and removing GCDs is basically lowering the skill ceiling and adding oGCDs to raise the floor is to where the ceiling used to be is a bad idea(look at retail World of Warcraft as the prime example offender of this) and GCDs that have unique recast timer is a good balance of raising both skill floor and ceiling at the same time.