New Job: Pugilist Tank

[Kitru]

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.

I'm gonna go over this again because apparently people keep missing it: an evasion tank would by necessity have +hp because, without it, they would have dramatically worse eHP compared to the other tanks, which means that it wouldn't be balanced. With 25% +hp, any attack that would 1 shot the theoretical evasion tank would 1 shot a PLD or WAR because they have the exact same eHP. The situation you describe would not happen.

[Maku]

However, most healers are not going to want to heal for a tank that requires twitch reactions because of unpredictable hard damage, thus they would never be used.

[Warrlordd]

However, most healers are not going to want to heal for a tank that requires twitch reactions because of unpredictable hard damage, thus they would never be used.

So, the good ones will be great, the less good ones will be trash. Then they'll be buffed to ridiculous levels. and we'll all be fine. I've healed tanks that require twitch reactions. It just is not that bad.

[Failia]

I'm going to give my experience here because I HAVE played a game with an evade tank.

When I still played Anarchy Online (AO), one of the professions was Martial Artist (MA). They were primarily a DPS role (as pugilist/monk is) but when we were in a pinch and didn't have a Soldier or Enforcer to tank, we could rely on an MA to use. The main difference is that it was not a tank so we had to let them build aggro for a bit.

If built properly, MA's had high evasion could help with tanking but they were prone to spike damage simply because their damage mitigation wasn't that high or had high HP. There were also concerns with them failing evade checks a few times in a row and it wouldbe a flat MA.

One thing that a lot of the tank roles in ARR have now is mitigation through something they all have in common: armor. Monks have significantly lower armor levels than the current tank roles simply because the armor they have access to is leather armor. They may evade some attacks if parry/evade is stacked correctly but when they are hit, they're hit hard. In AO, MAs did have slightly lower armor as well but it wasn't as drastic a difference as it can be between a warrior and a monk.

I also played a tank in DC Universe Online (DCUO), a fire tank. The play style for fire tanks was different than most other tanks simply because they had to reply on their high HP buffer to keep them alive instead of high defence or ability to absorb damage. I also spent most of my time blocking attacks to make up for the defence short coming. I considered myself a good tank in DCUO so hopefully I can apply myself when I finally start my own tank.

That said, I don't see SE changing how pugilist currently works as they had an idea what monk was for. Some people may be able to manage it if they stack attributes in the correct way but it woul be difficult. there would also be the ridicule you would get from others as you wouldn't be DPS but not a tank neither, just an unhappy hybrid.

*edit* I hate the posting limitation, it's rediculous.

[Kitru]

However, most healers are not going to want to heal for a tank that requires twitch reactions because of unpredictable hard damage, thus they would never be used.

You overestimate the twitch reactions required. The evasion tank design which I'm discussing has substantial variations in damage received over the short term but not as extreme as other designs because the evasion is limited to the equivalence of the +healing and DR benefits that the other tanks get. It would not need to be healed the very instant that it takes damage, lest the very next hit immediately kill it (barring situations like Plummet>Death Sentence>Plummet where that's the case for all of the tanks). The closest in game approximation would be likened to a WAR that needs 20% more healing to get propped back up to full: it requires a faster reaction to get that comparatively bigger heal in the smaller window, but it's not as bad as you make it out to be.

[Traek]

I don't really get why people are arguing with Kitru on this one. You might not like evasion tanks, or think evasion tanks will be good in FFXIV, that is fine. He has presented some good numbers to make an evasion tank work however. Evasion tanks always have their risk/reward, and some are going to be fight dependent of course. It is good to have diversity though, I wouldn't mind having an evasion tank to try out on top of my PLD/WAR. I loved NIN in FFXIV, I just want SE to keep it balanced. 2.1 has put tanks in a good spot.

One thing I'll say on what you presented Kitru. I'd rather PLD/WAR keep king in their respective areas (WAR hp, PLD % mitigation), so instead of a 25% HP buff (too copy and paste WAR), I'd rather they made some form of mix on it. 10% DR, 10% HP, 20% Evasion, as an example. I realize this doesn't map out perfectly in numbers, just an example.

[Kitru]

One thing I'll say on what you presented Kitru. I'd rather PLD/WAR keep king in their respective areas (WAR hp, PLD % mitigation), so instead of a 25% HP buff (too copy and paste WAR), I'd rather they made some form of mix on it. 10% DR, 10% HP, 20% Evasion, as an example. I realize this doesn't map out perfectly in numbers, just an example.

The problem is that there is very little that increases eHP without directly increasing mean mitigation as well, beyond simply increasing hp. The only other stuff you can really get is absorb shields, because you can apply those before big hits, but those get kind of funky because they start impacting mean mitigation by absorbing hits. You could maybe generate the absorb shields to be equivalent to WAR self heals over time and apply math to the tank stance accordingly, but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be enough to actually prevent the one-shot problem. A possible variation could be that the PGL tank increases its hp by the damage it deals (i.e. hit the target for 100 damage, your hp goes up by 100), up to a max of 30% of max hp, and the buff is removed as soon as you drop below 50-75% hp. Honestly though, that variation is basically the same thing done in an arbitrarily roundabout way to prevent duplicating a single aspect about WARs. It would be like having a CD that increases hp and healing received by 25% instead of just having it reduce damage taken by 20% because you don't want to copy Rampart; I just don't see the point because you're already copying it anyways.

Concerning it impinging upon WAR's demesne, the only thing it's doing is copying the +hp, which I don't really think is justified as being something that solely WAR should have. I've always considered WAR to be all about Wrath generation/consumption so, as long as no other tank copies *that* mechanic, in my mind, WAR is perfectly safe. Even then, I'm pretty sure that a resource mechanic like that would work fine as long as it didn't copy the consumers themselves, since those are more defining than Wrath itself.

[Traek]

Concerning it impinging upon WAR's demesne, the only thing it's doing is copying the +hp, which I don't really think is justified as being something that solely WAR should have. I've always considered WAR to be all about Wrath generation/consumption so, as long as no other tank copies *that* mechanic, in my mind, WAR is perfectly safe. Even then, I'm pretty sure that a resource mechanic like that would work fine as long as it didn't copy the consumers themselves, since those are more defining than Wrath itself.

I'm not too concerned, just throwing out, what in my opinion, would be ideal and make everyone happy. I agree Warrior is about Wrath, but you can't deny the #epeenHP is a little fun in the end. Just as the PLD sword/shield + 20% DR is its thing. A straight HP increase would certainly be the easiest method of balancing.

One thing they should do is mix *evasion tank* with *parry tank* IMO. It makes sense with the reflexes to *dodge* the attack, you'd have the dexterity/speed to also be parrying more attacks. This would also help to level out the *spike* that I think healers are sometimes afraid of in evasion tanks. It'd have to be balanced in the end of course, I just never got why evasion and parry tanks were always considered completely separate.

[Kitru]

It'd have to be balanced in the end of course, I just never got why evasion and parry tanks were always considered completely separate.

I've always considered them both to fall under the umbrella of RNG tanks. It's just easier to say "evasion tank" because that's what people expect so much of. As to whether it's a tank should have higher parry or lower evasion, higher parry rates get *really* wonky given the comparatively low parry value that ARR uses. Since parries only amount to 25% mitigation, you've got to have 4 times as much to equal. Once you've gotten enough parry to equate to the evasion, you start getting to the point where you're parrying pretty much everything which kind of gets rid of the whole "RNG" part of "RNG mechanic". I actually expect any tank that gets a constant parry bonus to get a bonus to its parry value as opposed to parry chance since it preserves the RNG.

[Codek]

(Attempting to get this off the trivial discussion on balancing)

Evasion tanking should probably have it's niche built around being effective against quick high number of weak attacks.

Currently we have:
PAL - Best at surviving the impossible (boss enrages and 1-time moments where you really shouldn't survive) and are generally strong all around.
WAR - Best at taking large hits repetitively through fights

What could be added:
NIN - Great for bosses that attack at 2x normal speed and AoE pulls with lots of mobs.

Throw in a debuff that they can use to slow mobs attack speed (to support fellow tanks when OTing) and there can potentially be a new viable tank setup for content.



Note: For the sake of argument, assume the NIN tank can viably tank all hard hitting bosses and that it's simply not an ideal situation.