New Job: Pugilist Tank

[Kitru]

So evasion shouldn't apply to certain attacks (the most damaging) so you are giving them enough HP to survive them. However, evasion does mitigate other attacks thus reducing the amount of healing they need over time.

First off, it's not that evasion *shouldn't* work against stuff like EX Mountain Buster and EX Incinerate; it's that it *doesn't* work on those attacks. The only reason that matters in the least, however, is because those attacks apply fight relevant debuffs. If they didn't apply fight relevant debuffs, it would be perfectly acceptable for evasion to work on them because it's not providing any benefit over the +healing that WAR gets or the DR that PLD gets (which, if you consider that HM MB can be evaded but EX MB cannot, it's pretty indicative that the devs actually kept that in mind).

When would you use either of the other two tanks if this is the situation? If an evasion tank can take less damage over time cause of evasion but has enough HP to withstand the unavoidable and most dangerous attacks, you would never use either of the other two tanks.

I never said that it would take less damage over time than the other tanks. 20% evasion is no better than 20% DR where mean mitigation is concerned. That's the entire point. Evasion is simply a mean mitigation mechanism. If you provide it in the equivalent quantity as the other tanks get +healing or DR, it provides no increased benefit.

+20% evasion and +25% hp provides the *exact same benefits* as 20% DR from Shield Oath. That's the entire point. Evasion tanks are only broken when you screw up that simple concept.

[Alwryn]

I really shouldn't do this, I said I wouldn't. Curse my lack of self control and boredom.

+20% evasion and +25% hp provides the *exact same benefits* as 20% DR from Shield Oath. That's the entire point. Evasion tanks are only broken when you screw up that simple concept.

This is both correct and incorrect. In terms of total mitigation over a long period of time, yes. They are equal.

However, think of bulwark. Bulwark is the worst PLD cooldown. Why? because its unreliable, it doesn't always work. I've used it for a death sentence, blocked neither the plummet, the death sentence, or the auto attack and died because of it. No one was prepared for Bulwark to fail so spectacularly. Does this happen often? No, it's happened twice in the months I've been doing twintania but it still happens and is still a major issue in the very core concept of an evasion tank.

Evasion isn't reliable since it isn't constant, if you have some bad luck and don't evade during a burst phase, bad things can happen. Of course this works both ways as well, sometimes you evade alot of attacks. Point is, unreliable mitigation is not what anyone wants when they're facing down foreseeable burst damage. Why would anyone put their hands completely into RNG when they can take steps to mitigate damage through their own actions. Unreliable mitigation is inferior to reliable mitigation in practice, even if on paper they should be equal.

But another huge problem is once again, is debuff attacks and death sentence. What if you can't evade them? Imagine a PLD facing down DS without shield oath. Because if 20% evasion is replacing 20% dmg reduction or 25% hp/healing and you can't evade a death sentence; you're basically a PLD without oath, or a WAR without defiance. One of your main mitigation mechanics is now worthless. How will an evasion tank be able to deal with these situations? If it's some form of damage mitigation cooldown ala inner beast or rampart, whats the point? All you have now is another clone of the current tanks with different flavour text, but is also more liable to burst damage. Completely breaking encounters by being able to dodge fight relevant mechanics isn't viable, its broken by its very nature.

Listen, I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Total mitigation over a fight doesn't matter. What matters is mitigation when you need it, relevant mitigation. Death sentence, Wicked Wheel, Mountain buster, Incinerate Spam; you want mitigation for them. Who wants a ton of mitigation when the healers would be able to keep you up easily with their most mp efficient heals without said mitigation; it's a waste.

I still say we will probably never see a evasion tank. SE will not break their own mechanics and SE will not create another tank job that plays no differently then the others. If we do see one, it'll be different from what most people expect an evasion attack to be, which is what I've been saying all along.

[Kitru]

Why would anyone put their hands completely into RNG when they can take steps to mitigate damage through their own actions. Unreliable mitigation is inferior to reliable mitigation in practice, even if on paper they should be equal.

Which is why there is +hp.RNG based mitigation mechanisms are not a replacement for static mitigation mechanisms for spike damage situations. As I have said time and time again, Evasion doesn't isn't a factor when you considering the massive spike hits. It's explicitly because of the worst case stuff that you're discussing that any Evasion tank would need the ~25% +hp *because that gives them the exact same eHP as a WAR or PLD*.

But another huge problem is once again, is debuff attacks and death sentence. What if you can't evade them? Imagine a PLD facing down DS without shield oath. Because if 20% evasion is replacing 20% dmg reduction or 25% hp/healing and you can't evade a death sentence; you're basically a PLD without oath, or a WAR without defiance.

What you continually seem to be incapable of comprehending is that 20% evasion is *not* replacing 20% DR or 25% +hp/+healing. 25% +hp and 20% evasion are replacing them. Evasion is a mean mitigation stat. It does not affect a tank's eHP specifically because it can, and will, fail. You do not rely upon Evasion to keep you alive through something like a Death Sentence. You rely upon the 25% +hp that you would be getting *alongside* the evasion.

I have said this *over and over*. How do both of you keep missing this and act like Evasion would be the sole benefice given to this theoretical tank?

Listen, I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Total mitigation over a fight doesn't matter.

That's an ignorant viewpoint because, if you only care about eHP (which is what you keep bringing up), you're leaving out mean mitigation, which would be like giving WAR 25% +hp but no +healing: yes, they would be able to survive the same hits as a PLD, given the same starting hp, but it would take 25% more healing to keep them at that place.

You *have* to account for both eHP and mean mitigation when coming up with a tanking. On top of this, you have to realize that not all mechanics affect both, which I have said multiple times. Any tank getting a substantial amount of evasion is going to *have* to get something to bolster their eHP specfically because evasion doesn't do *anything* for eHP; it's a pure mean mitigation stat, and, honestly, it's not like the math is even remotely hard.

[Alwryn]

snip

You can really tell you don't have much experience in actual endgame. Practical applications, balance, it would seem all you can really say is mean mitigation and eHP. You're also contradicting things you've said earlier are are now proposing a evasion tank that doesn't actually use evasion in any meaningful capacity, once of which you're willing to give anything and everything to make it viable against criticism.

Well, whatever. I should have left this alone, but to err is human. I've said my piece, shared my opinions, and had some fun along the way. I've said all i need to say about evasion tanks in 14 and it looks like we're continuing to disagree. That's fine, everyone's entitled to their own opinion after all.

Of course, all varnished in a smug sense of self satisfaction.

[Kitru]

You can really tell you don't have much experience in actual endgame.

I've been clearing everything for Twintania for months already, which my (new) static is currently working on. Unless you think that the *only* endgame is Twintania (and, even then, I've been up to Twisters), I'd have to say you're outright wrong.

Practical applications, balance, it would seem all you can really say is mean mitigation and eHP.

That's because those are the two numerical concerns that drive tank balance. Would you care to enlighten me what else exactly I should be discussing when talking about balance tank survivability?

You're also contradicting things you've said earlier are are now proposing a evasion tank that doesn't actually use evasion in any meaningful capacity, once of which you're willing to give anything and everything to make it viable against criticism.

No, I've been saying the same thing I've been saying the entire time. Go read my first post in this thread: I explicitly describe the tank as having 30% +hp and 22.5% +evasion. If you think that I'm somehow changing what I've been saying, it's because you don't actually know what I've been saying the entire time, which just proves my point.

Concerning you saying that my construct does not use "evasion in a meaningful capacity", 20% is *quite* meaningful, unless you honestly believe that neither Shield Oath, Defiance, Rampart, or Inner Beast are significant. The shield for a PLD does less than the 20% evasion I'm talking about. 20% means a crapton. Just because it's not getting 50% +evasion, or whatever amount you believe is required to make it an evasion tank, doesn't mean that it's not an evasion tank; everyone said that 2.0 WAR was a self healing tank even though a *tiny* portion of their total mitigation was actually drawn from it. The "type" of tank is determined by how it is different from the other tanks, and all that's required to make a tank using evasion significantly different from PLD or WAR is to give them ~20-25% +evasion.

[Maku]

+20% evasion and +25% hp provides the *exact same benefits* as 20% DR from Shield Oath. That's the entire point. Evasion tanks are only broken when you screw up that simple concept.

If you only think in terms of a tank yes. But you need to take into consideration the healer. the HP plus of WAR and the DR on PLD are great but the require a good deal of healing even just from auto attacks because in things like t5 and ex primals the healers must keep the tanks at 100% at all times or risk an instant death from a series of instant moves. Because we have to keep them at 100% there is a lot of over healing involved. However, with an evasion tank sure when they do get hit they get hit harder but this will actually allow the healers to over heal much much less because the evasion tanks are actually using up all the HPs we are giving to them in the spell instead of only say half like the WAR or PLD do. We will have to cast less because of the evasion because an evasion is a 100% mitigation where the current tanks only have partial mitigation (looking at a single attack here). This opens up healers to DPS or take care of the other party members much more easily.

Even though your math looks good on paper (And I admit what you said makes perfect sense), simply put healers will have to cast fewer heals and those heals will be more effective due to less over healing on an evasion tank helping alleviate (<-did I use this correctly) enmity issues of WHMs and allowing both healers to potentially DPS more.

This is assuming that the evasion tank doesn't get defensive CDs like Foresight and stuff that up Defence because they are evasive and shouldn't be getting hit right? So they would get things like Featherfoot to up the evasion even further and potentially evade auto attacks in a consecutive row and thus help the healers even more.

[Kitru]

If you only think in terms of a tank yes. But you need to take into consideration the healer. the HP plus of WAR and the DR on PLD are great but the require a good deal of healing even just from auto attacks because in things like t5 and ex primals the healers must keep the tanks at 100% at all times or risk an instant death from a series of instant moves. Because we have to keep them at 100% there is a lot of over healing involved. However, with an evasion tank sure when they do get hit they get hit harder but this will actually allow the healers to over heal much much less because the evasion tanks are actually using up all the HPs we are giving to them in the spell instead of only say half like the WAR or PLD do. We will have to cast less because of the evasion because an evasion is a 100% mitigation where the current tanks only have partial mitigation (looking at a single attack here). This opens up healers to DPS or take care of the other party members much more easily.

I seriously have to wonder how much overhealing you're dumping into a tank to keep them alive during EX primals. I've healed all of the EX primals and I've *never* had a tank die to lack of healing nor have I ever ended up spending a majority of my time overhealing. If you're overhealing like that, you're doing it wrong.

As to the aspect of tanking that you are dancing around, it's called "spikiness" (or, more properly, the incoming damage profile). It refers to the pace in which damage is received and healing is required. Evasion tanks, because their form of "bonus" mitigation, have incredibly spiky incoming damage profiles. In fact, any reliance upon RNG based mitigation ends up increasing your spikiness, though higher chance/lower potency mitigation mechanisms have lower spikiness than lower chance/higher potency RNG mechanisms. It's exactly what PLDs have to consider when deciding between the Allagan Shield and the Onion Shield: the Onion Shield reduces you spikiness substantially, which is a significant benefit even if it provides less explicit mean mitigation over an extended period of time.

The problem with what you're saying here is that you're acting as if spikiness is a *benefit* because it decreases overhealing and/or allows for gaps between healing required. Yes, it does, but you neglected to realize that, when a tank with a spiky incoming damage profile needs healing, they need it *very quickly*. You have to pay a *helluva lot more attention* to a tank with a spiky incoming damage profile and, because of the rapid drops in hp that are possible, if you're busy throwing damage on enemies or heals on other targets, you're not going to be able to get back to the tank as quickly as you could/should be. It's the exact scenario that occurs when you have a WAR that gets hit with a Plummet>DS>Plummet: if you're doing *anything* but healing the tank when that happens, the tank is basically dead.

This is assuming that the evasion tank doesn't get defensive CDs like Foresight and stuff that up Defence because they are evasive and shouldn't be getting hit right? So they would get things like Featherfoot to up the evasion even further and potentially evade auto attacks in a consecutive row and thus help the healers even more.

Any tank that focused *entirely* upon RNG based mechanisms would be shooting itself in the foot. The key to effective tanking is diversity. Evasion tanks should not be thought of as tanks that rely entirely or even in a *majority* upon dodging attacks to survive. I've dealt with games tried to make it work but it never did (City of Heroes/Villains Super Reflexes). An "evasion" tank is best thought of as a tank that relies upon evasion more heavily than the other tanks but not to the exclusion of everything else. PLD is considered to be a damage reduction tank, but it doesn't have *only* damage reduction: it still has the baseline dodge (which is bolstered somewhat by Flash's Blind), and actually brings in an extra level of RNG with shield blocking.

A well design tank is diversified in the mechanics it draws upon. Since evasion are already creates a woefully spiky tank, the best set up is for one is to have their CDs to focus upon smoothing out their spikiness: DR, Defense increases, etc. It has less of an impact upon mean mitigation than you might think because evasion is already an all-or-nothing mechanic: if you dodge an attack, it wouldn't matter if you had 1000 def or 0 def. The only time the CD would actually benefit you would be if an attack actually punched through your evasion.

[AmyNeudaiz]

First off, it's not that evasion *shouldn't* work against stuff like EX Mountain Buster and EX Incinerate; it's that it *doesn't* work on those attacks.

Replying to older post in this thread but I just wanted to point out that apparently from what I've heard you can actually dodge incinerate now >.>
I haven't seen it myself but I've heard from a few people that they have

[Kitru]

Replying to older post in this thread but I just wanted to point out that apparently from what I've heard you can actually dodge incinerate now >.>
I haven't seen it myself but I've heard from a few people that they have

You can't. You can, however, fully soak it with Adloq, Stoneskin, and DR CDs active. I've done it more than a few times with an Adloq crit on a tank using a DR CD. If you fully soak it, you don't get the debuff. It's really fun when you fully soak it and end up having your stacks fall off before you even reach 3 (and confuses the hell out of tanks that only look at Suppuration stacks).

[Garra]

This doesn't really fit in 100% with this idea of an evasion tank but another good tank mechanism that would avoid all of this RNG that everyone is so worried about, is to give an on command ability to produce a shield similar to how stoneskin/aloq works now. The amount would obviously have to be tweaked so that it fits in terms of mitigation with the other tanks, but then you would have a brand new mechanic that allows PLD and WAR to remain in their own niches (PLD flat mitigation, WAR hp/heals).

This shield type mechanic could for example be a magic tank where they put up small shields on themselves built into their tanking stance. This shields could on regular attacks mitigate a flat damage percent for each shield. To keep this fair, the shields could stack up to a maximum of 5 and only allow 1 shield be used at a time for normal attacks. Then as a greater mitigation mechanism (like hallowed ground/holm) the character could expend all of their shields at once to create one large shield that absorbs for the total of all of the shields x 2 on a large cooldown.

Implementing a tank that uses these shields would require some management of skills and cooldowns similar to how WAR plays, however it could be very easily balanced.

These are just very rough ideas, but I think it would be a neat, active way to include a new tank without making anything overpowered/underpowered.