Defensive ability, WAR VS DRK

[Giantbane]

Not necessarily. People will whine about anything. It's the desire for the "perfect" class. If it were up to me, of course there would be no limiting factor to any skill, and I'd face roll ALL THE CONTENT. But that doesn't make a good game. This class, however, is not actually wanting for anything. Between cross class skills and class skills, there isn't a thing they shouldn't be able to handle. They are already getting the equivalent tank toggle to Paladins, a skill that is EXACTLY like Rampart, one equivalent to Vengeance minus a porcupine effect but Rampart's CD, they also have access to Foresight, Awareness, Convalescence, then they also get a very short cooldown for magic damage. That's three cooldowns for physical damage and three for magical damage, a healing up, and a little fodder to sprinkle on top (Awareness). When it comes to magical attackers, this class will take the cake with Delirium too. No tank yet can shine so well against magical enemies, and they still don't lack when it comes to physical. How anyone can find any faults in this job's capabilities is beyond me. The likely case is they are simply bad at playing the job.

I think the following highlights the concerns quite well.

Like I said above, Odin's fight is a good way to see the differences.
PLD has 5 preemptive defense CD, so you always have one ready for each Sangetall. WAR has Inner Beast. That alone is enough to mitigate every hit too.
As a DRK, I have 4 cooldowns (Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, Dark Dance and Living Dead)., and they pop pretty fast, since Odin use its tankbuster very frequently. Maybe I lack some experience as a DRK, but it's far more difficult. And Dark Dance is far from reliable.

Listing off how their mana regen abilities as if it was some kind of "benefit" to the class is silly. They use VASTLY more mana than either WARs or PLD. It's not a benefit to the class, it's a requirement to make it function at all.

Oh, the skill that's equivalent to Vengeance minus the porcupine effect? It doesn't have Vengeance's 2min cooldown or Rampart's 90sec cooldown, it has Sentinel's 3 minute cooldown (you know sentinel with the 40% damage reduction, not vengeance's 30% damage reduction?). If that ability was on a 90s cooldown we'd be having a different conversation.

[Ceodore]

I think the following highlights the concerns quite well.



Listing off how their mana regen abilities as if it was some kind of "benefit" to the class is silly. They use VASTLY more mana than either WARs or PLD. It's not a benefit to the class, it's a requirement to make it function at all.

Oh, the skill that's equivalent to Vengeance minus the porcupine effect? It doesn't have Vengeance's 2min cooldown or Rampart's 90sec cooldown, it has Sentinel's 3 minute cooldown (you know sentinel with the 40% damage reduction, not vengeance's 30% damage reduction?). If that ability was on a 90s cooldown we'd be having a different conversation.

Where is Foresight? Where is Awareness? Where is Convalescence? To ignore these skills is a sign of incompetence. ALL your tools make up a tank, not just the ones that come stock. I'm aware of the effect and the CD on Shadow Wall. Its CD is like Sentinel, then plan with it like Sentinel.

[Giantbane]

Where is Foresight? Where is Awareness? Where is Convalescence? To ignore these skills is a sign of incompetence. ALL your tools make up a tank, not just the ones that come stock.

All 3 abilities are available to each tank so it's sort of a moot point. They're all not particularly effective vs. tank busters except Convalescence on the WAR. The reason for this is that you can pair it with Thrill of Battle to create an effect that almost exactly mimics Rampart.

I'm aware of the effect and the CD on Shadow Wall. Its CD is like Sentinel, then plan with it like Sentinel.

I guess it was a typo when you said that skill like vengeance with a Rampart cooldown.

Anyhow. Lets take a raid boss with a ~30s physical tank buster (which, as you've so kindly pointed out, the majority of tank busters are physical thus far).

PLD will have rage of halone up all the time, reducing the strength of all his attacks, including all the tank busters.
WAR will have storm's path up all the time, reducing the strength of all his attacks, including all the tank busters.
DRK might have reprise up, reducing some of his attacks, it ... might be on the boss for a tank buster?

Tank buster 1 > Shadow Skin
Tank buster 2 > Shadow Wall
Tank buster 3 > you've got your dick in your hand and odin's about to chop it off ... whaddaya gonna do? pop everything else and hope for the best?

[Ceodore]

All 3 abilities are available to each tank so it's sort of a moot point.

Anyhow. Lets take a raid boss with a ~30s physical tank buster (which, as you've so kindly pointed out, the majority of tank busters are physical thus far).

PLD will have rage of halone up all the time, reducing the strength of all his attacks, including all the tank busters.
WAR will have storm's path up all the time, reducing the strength of all his attacks, including all the tank busters.
DRK might have reprise up, reducing some of his attacks, it ... might be on the boss for a tank buster?

Tank buster 1 > Shadowskin
Tank buster 2 > Shadowwall
Tank buster 3 > you've got your dick in your hand and odin's about to chop it off ... whaddaya gonna do? pop everything else and hope for the best?

Convalescence well before hand to increase potency of shield cast on you by healer (As the healer is suppose to do) Foresight to reduce physical damage, Awareness to ensure the hit is not critical. You assume to think that you're using all these skills right when the hit is coming. Again, a sign of a sub par tank. Utilize each one to their fullest by predicting what your party is going to do. Every healer should know to shield for a tank crunch, if your mitigation alone is all you are relying on, then I suggest you find a better healer. What use is Convalescence for mitigating damage after the fact of the damage? None. Utilize it before the damage to boost the preparing skills a healer is suppose to use and suddenly a healing skill becomes a damage mitigating skill.

[Giantbane]

Convalescence well before hand to increase potency of shield cast on you by healer (As the healer is suppose to do) Foresight to reduce physical damage, Awareness to ensure the hit is not critical. You assume to think that you're using all these skills right when the hit is coming. Again, a sign of a sub par tank. Utilize each one to their fullest by predicting what your party is going to do. Every healer should know to shield for a tank crunch, if your mitigation alone is all you are relying on, then I suggest you find a better healer. What use is Convalescence for mitigating damage after the fact of the damage? None. Utilize it before the damage to boost the preparing skills a healer is suppose to use and suddenly a healing skill becomes a damage mitigating skill.

You're talking raid coordination that the other tanks wouldn't require because they have actual defensive cooldowns to mitigate the damage.

So the other two tanks have abilities that can just deal with the tank buster on their own without the need for healers to have any idea what they're doing. But the DRK requires the healers to be on the ball for that 3rd hit because he can't do anything about it on his own. That doesn't sound very balanced.

What happens when you graduate from PUG level Odin to actual raids that require the tank to pop a strong mitigation ability in addition to healer coordination to handle the really big tank busters? You're not seeing the problem here?

[Ceodore]

You're talking raid coordination that the other tanks wouldn't require because they have actual defensive cooldowns to mitigate the damage.

So the other two tanks have abilities that can just deal with the tank buster on their own without the need for healers to have any idea what they're doing. But the DRK requires the healers to be on the ball for that 3rd hit because he can't do anything about it on his own. That doesn't sound very balanced.

What happens when you graduate from PUG level Odin to actual raids that require the tank to pop a strong mitigation ability in addition to healer coordination to handle the really big tank busters? You're not seeing the problem here?

You're telling me that you DON'T use these skills in such a way to maximize their effect then? It isn't about just having good healers. I don't care what tank you are. If your healers suck, then you're not going to live. So what is the point you are trying to make? That Paladins and Warriors don't need good healers to live? That's idiocy. It's about making what you seem to think impossible, possible. Frankly, it is. Whether one way requires a group to be competent or not is besides the point. If your group sucks, then you being good or bad has no merit anyways. But if the one weak link in the chain is you, then you drag the rest of them down with you because you can't perform.

Also, saying someone graduate from PUG level Odin to a raid that requires a preformed group is actually reversed. A preformed group is going to know what they are doing, thus the healer will actually have talent, and can be more relied on to shield up before a hit and make use of Convalescence to its full potential. This just proves my point. A group of competent players can make what you assume to be hard to instead be a walk in the park by utilizing combinations of skills between them. That also seems to be the direction things may be going too, with Paladins having a new AOE shielding buff, and a heal and Dark Knights having a self heal based on who is about to die.

[Giantbane]

You're telling me that you DON'T use these skills in such a way then? It isn't about just having good healers. I don't care what tank you are. If your healers suck, then you're not going to live. So what is the point you are trying to make? That Paladins and Warriors don't need good healers to live? That's idiocy.

Warriors and Paladins don't need healers to pre-shield them in Odin, no. Their ability set is strong enough as is to handle healers that are just reacting to damage instead of trying to pre-heal/shield for it.

So when you take the already strong ability set of WAR & PLD and then take it in to high level raids with good healers that will coordinate for that sort of thing, then those jobs only get stronger. If the DRK requires good healers to survive on PUG level content like Odin, how are they gonna fare when you move into high level raids where everything hits a lot harder?

It looks a bit like 2.0 WAR vs. PLD. Sure WAR could do all the content that was available if your gear was top of the line and you had really good healers and you worked well together to handle the lack of WAR's innate damage mitigation. Or you could take a PLD and do it much easier. It wasn't balanced and it got fixed.

[Reynhart]

Listing off how their mana regen abilities as if it was some kind of "benefit" to the class is silly. They use VASTLY more mana than either WARs or PLD. It's not a benefit to the class, it's a requirement to make it function at all.

Oh, the skill that's equivalent to Vengeance minus the porcupine effect? It doesn't have Vengeance's 2min cooldown or Rampart's 90sec cooldown, it has Sentinel's 3 minute cooldown (you know sentinel with the 40% damage reduction, not vengeance's 30% damage reduction?). If that ability was on a 90s cooldown we'd be having a different conversation.

Wait, what ?
At what do you actually answer here ?

It seems like we agree that DRK has less mitigation for really frequent tankbusters, but I can't really say for sure.