New Job: Pugilist Tank

[Kitru]

At this point you're just not listening.

Well isn't *this* just ironic.

Dream of an evasion tank that doesn't need to evade to tank, and isn't broken by either not needing to evade or evading while not evading.

I applaud you on your strawman description, because, you know, it's a poorly worded and badly described flawed interpretation of what I've been talking about.

An evasion tank *needs* to evade attacks, not as a question of short term survivability, but as a question of long term survivability because evasion does not contribute reliably to short term survivability.

Let me make it as simple as possible so that you don't misunderstand:

A PLD has a ~5% chance to be missed by an attack but reduces the damage dealt by any attack to them by 20%. An evasion tank would instead have a ~25% chance to be missed by an attack but take "full" damage from that attack. It's not that difficult to comprehend.

[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.

[XanderOlivieri]

Just want to say, despite my unwillingless to play a Tank let alone a DoW, I'd like to see an evasion tank used. Its different and a lot of evasion based classes were typically squishy by main design. I think it be something worth seeing and would play a bit differently than what we have now so it could be worth a shot as much as adding a magic Tank that does the same thing as the current tanks but with spells instead of skills.

[Kitru]

If the healer has to pay more attention then before then um, why would you use that style of tank then?

Generally, the trade off would be slightly higher mean mitigation (you have to pay more attention but are rewarded in having to use fewer resources to keep them alive). When you're talking straight equivalences, like compared DR to the combination of hp and evasion, the math ignores stuff like spikiness because it's looking for the equivalence not the practical balance concern. As I see it, an evasion tank would probably get roughly 22.5-25% evasion along with 30% +hp, both of which exist to make up for the significantly spikier damage profile. Spikiness is a calculable attribute, but it's got be balanced using heuristics and intuition rather than straight math (the math gives you a guideline that has to be honed down to account for the abstract). It's done in the same way that Defiance is balanced: to be equal with Shield Oath, Defiance *should* have 25% +hp and 25% +healing, but it only has 20% because WAR brings in self healing which necessitates a reduction in their increased mean mitigation. The math behind it isn't absolutely solid, mainly because the value of self healing shifts greatly depending upon how much damage you're taking over a period of time, so it's tweaked to get to as close to balanced as possible.

[Cabalabob]

Archer and pugilist are the two jobs I don't see leaving the damage dealer department, at best I think PUG will get a "support" DD maybe BLU or something, like ARC got BRD. Archer will get a straight DD job like RNG, like PUG got MNK.

[Alwryn]

snip

now don't get me wrong, It's not that I don't want to see an evasion tank; quite the opposite really. I was a tank in FFXI as well, which meant I used NIN when it was relevant to the encounter. I would love to see an evasion tank.

I just really don't see a way for one to exist in XIV's system.

[Maku]

Generally, ...

That just reads as standing around more waiting to heal because you can't look away to DPS or heal other people because you have to be ready at a moments notice.

[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.

[Kitru]

That just reads as standing around more waiting to heal because you can't look away to DPS or heal other people because you have to be ready at a moments notice.

Which is kind of the point. Spikiness is synonymous with predictability. If you can predict the amount of healing required less accurately with one tank than another, you're going to have to pay more attention to that less predictable tank. The "payout" for not being able to predict how much healing is going to be required over the short term is needing to heal less over the long term. It actually works out pretty well for balance purposes.

[Firepower]

But it doesn't imagine that this spike damage happens on a big hit (mountain buster is a good example) and the tank goes down in 1 hit. Just because of a bad RNG the party is wiped, if this happens more than once the party disbands and everyone says, get a normal tank that doesn't have the ability to insta-wipe a party for no fault of its own. So nobody then uses the evasion tank because people don't like to waste time wiping due to dumb luck. Or it goes the other way and it consistently evades big hits thus making WAR and PLD useless because what is the point in mitigation if the other tank avoids it all together.