Think Dark Knight will have any HP-sacrificing abilities, for Solo or Off-tank roles?

[LineageRazor]

I think folks are WAAAAAAY too paranoid about the supposed disaster that would come from an ability that costs a tank MP. As long as a tank is smart about using it, even an ability that cost a quarter of a tank's HP would be easily smoothed over by a healer, to the point where they wouldn't even NOTICE the tank had used an ability (and would just assume the mob critted, or something).

There are times when it's safe for a tank to take extra damage, and there are times when it is not. A good tank will recognize which is which, and use the self-harm ability appropriately. A bad tank may not, but it's not as though a bad tank isn't going to find other ways to fail anyways.

Consider this for an ability: Souleater: Consumes 5% of max HP to deal unaspected magic damage with a potency of 150 to all enemies within range. Additionall effect: Increased Enmity. Recast: 120 seconds.

On an endgame tank with 10000ish HP, 5% is 500 HP. An extra 500 HP of damage at most every two minutes? Healers won't even NOTICE. This sort of ability would be in keeping with the style of Dark Knight and still useful to a tank without being disastrous to the party.

[Asierid]

Snip

No. Just...stop. That whole argument makes no sense and any half decent healer in progression content will rage at this comment.

The whole thought process is just...bad. You do not take unnecessary damage as a tank. That's basically right below the rule on keeping threat in the tank handbook.

This just makes my head hurt at this point.

[Alberel]

No. Just...stop. That whole argument makes no sense and any half decent healer in progression content will rage at this comment.

The whole thought process is just...bad. You do not take unnecessary damage as a tank. That's basically right below the rule on keeping threat in the tank handbook.

This just makes my head hurt at this point.

So what if a tank sacrificed 25% of his current HP to give himself a barrier effect for double the amount? Suddenly you have an HP sacrifice that increases his survivability. HP sacrificing could easily be made to work for a tank, it just needs a little creativity which sadly many people find too difficult.

For further examples:

- The tank can sac HP to debuff all nearby targets so they do less damage.
- The tank can sac all but 1HP to make himself invulnerable for a time.
- The tank can have a DPS stance much like PLDs do that sacs max HP to increase their damage.

It's really not hard to come up with ways to make this work that actually benefit their tanking ability. Anyone saying it can't work just has zero imagination.

[Asierid]

Wat

Do you not even see the amount of imbalance that brings?

That ability would give a shield for 5k in the current gear set, on top of stoneskin and SCH bubbles. Naw. Not broken at all. Why make him take damage then? Let's just let the tank completely bypass the big skills in this game.

Invuln by sacing HP? Not broken at all.

The DPS stance I get, but that just adds useless skill bloat that we already have enough of.

Imagination and creativity has nothing to do with what actually works in reality. Hell, a double decker bus with a pool and a few stripper poles near the sports bar sounds great, now try making that a reality with the amount of restrictions in place. You do have to balance these things, that's the part I think you're not getting. It can work, but it results in a second rate tank (or a severely overpowered tank). This is already apparent in the many other games that have it implemented...and it fails every time.

[Belhi]

So what if a tank sacrificed 25% of his current HP to give himself a barrier effect for double the amount? Suddenly you have an HP sacrifice that increases his survivability. HP sacrificing could easily be made to work for a tank, it just needs a little creativity which sadly many people find too difficult.

For further examples:

- The tank can sac HP to debuff all nearby targets so they do less damage.
- The tank can sac all but 1HP to make himself invulnerable for a time.
- The tank can have a DPS stance much like PLDs do that sacs max HP to increase their damage.

It's really not hard to come up with ways to make this work that actually benefit their tanking ability. Anyone saying it can't work just has zero imagination.

There is a difference between something working and something working well.

Because A) the repercussions of the DKs use of HP falls on the healers to cover not the tank making healers jobs harder and B) Either the HP loss is offset by the value of the Mitigation or ability or the abilities are inferior to other tanks who don't require HP lose for Mitigation. Further, if the value of the Mitigation/ability is superior to other tanks it will be exploited because of the reliance on healers to counter the negative repositions. Its a balance mess.

Additionally it will make new DRK even more prone to messing up. I can see healers hating to heal DRKs in DF because of dumb tanks overusing the HP sacrifice making the healers job unnecessarily difficult.

HP sacrifice strikes me as a very bad idea. Resource management for a tank should be managed by the tank, not the healer. That's why MP works and HP doesn't.

[Alberel]

There is a difference between something working and something working well.

Because A) the repercussions of the DKs use of HP falls on the healers to cover not the tank making healers jobs harder and B) Either the HP loss is offset by the value of the Mitigation or ability or the abilities are inferior to other tanks who don't require HP lose for Mitigation. Further, if the value of the Mitigation/ability is superior to other tanks it will be exploited because of the reliance on healers to counter the negative repositions. Its a balance mess.

Additionally it will make new DRK even more prone to messing up. I can see healers hating to heal DRKs in DF because of dumb tanks overusing the HP sacrifice making the healers job unnecessarily difficult.

HP sacrifice strikes me as a very bad idea. Resource management for a tank should be managed by the tank, not the healer. That's why MP works and HP doesn't.

How does it make the healer's job harder to heal a small amount up front and have to heal less overall as a result? If the tank sacs 25% HP to give himself a 50% HP barrier that means the tank has effectively taken 25% less damage for the duration of the barrier and their HP remains static whilst the barrier is up giving healers plenty of time to heal back the 25% they sacced. That means LESS work for the healers! You're really not thinking this through...

As for balance concerns: you seem to be missing the part where their mitigation effects would be considerably more powerful to compensate for the health loss, with the net mitigation as a result being roughly the same. It would work just fine as it has worked in other games. Tanks with mechanics like these usually come paired with life draining abilities as well to allow them to recoup the HP they sacrificed themselves.

[LineageRazor]

HP sacrifice strikes me as a very bad idea. Resource management for a tank should be managed by the tank, not the healer. That's why MP works and HP doesn't.

Tanks have LONG been required to carefully balance their own resources with the Healers' resources. This is not a new thing. Tanks need to space out their defensive cooldowns to keep healers from having to use expensive spike heals. Paladins need to ensure they have enough MP to power flash long enough to keep up with enmity generated by heals on large pulls. When bad tanks misuse their resources, the ones who suffer are the healers. Tank resources and Healer resources are closely entwined, and it's a mistake to believe otherwise.

For abilities that sacrifice HP, it comes down to balance: CAN healers handle the HP loss? If not, it's not an appropriate ability for the situation you are in. Not all content is endgame progression content. It's stupid for a Paladin to be using Shield Oath in most parts of endgame, but no one will claim that it's stupid for them to have that ability. They simply don't use it when it is not appropriate. The same goes for an HP sacrifice ability.

In the phrase, "An ability that sacrifices HP has no place on a tank," replace "HP" with "defense", and the statement makes just as much sense - and yet we DO have options for reducing tank defense on our current tanks. When we need defense, we don't use those options.

HP and defense are pretty much the same thing, when you boil them down: How many hits can I take until I die?

[Asierid]

Dunno why we're bothering to argue with ignorance at this point. It's not going to be in the game anyway, for obvious reasons.

Just be glad the balancing team actually has common sense.

At least play a tank/healer in progression content before attempting to make sense of that "creativity".

[StouterTaru]

Dunno why we're bothering to argue with ignorance at this point. It's not going to be in the game anyway, for obvious reasons.

Just be glad the balancing team actually has common sense.

At least play a tank/healer in progression content before attempting to make sense of that "creativity".

There's a live letter tomorrow, and among other things we will "Catch a glimpse of how the brand-new jobs will function in battle."

I wouldn't discount abilities that sacrifice HP, the job isn't going to be a bland mixture of stuff WAR and PLD already have with different animations. Sacrificing HP to be invulnerable would be broken because the other two tanks don't have an ability that makes them invulnerable? I would rather see an inverse cover ability myself, but that would lead to people refusing to play with DRKs in PUGs.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Sacrificing Health for offensive purposes isn't very good game design for a tank. However sacrificing health for defensive purposes, is the exact opposite. Depending on how they are made and used (wisely) they can be great fun and really add a lot to the game. Sure, it can bring more work to the healers if used improperly just like temp buffs. However if you manage them well it should have a good payout.

Here are some examples of it working well.

Sacrifice 20% of your total life (If you have 10 life left, it only take 2 life to cast the spell.) to grant yourself mana and health regeneration. (low cool-down.)
Sacrifice 20% of your total life (If you have 10 life left, it only take 2 life to cast the spell.) to gain 20% damage reduction for 10 seconds. (low cool-down.)

The benefit of sacrifice temps is that they have low cool-downs compared to their counterparts, however they run a higher risk.

So, unlike other tank classes you can keep your temps up forever. However you have to keep sacrificing your own life to do it. You also have to sacrifice your life to bring back your mana as well.