Tank Balance

[Faeon]

SNIP.

It almost feels like the whole tank meta, was rushed and not thought of properly. In terms of encounter design ability synergy, how each tank functions with each other and if you have two of the same tank job in a group. the whole it is a DPS, Defense and Magical tank excuse is nonsense when you are gated by encounters that are dps checks, magical dmg with some physical, and require playing your tank offensive and defensively at the same time, while making one tank class skills flow nicely and benefit the group, while the others have issues with resources and feel clunky when trying to-do a similar thing.

I think the design around the tanks was skewed, they put in so much effort into the war, and just slapped things together on the PLD and DRK, not checking does the skills flow nicely, I need to be offensive and defensive, I can't always rely on a MCH or BRD for support like TP or MP re-gen.

The bottom line is they need to look at the synergy between all the tanks, look at what is happening in the communities play style, not there own QA department who works by the book per say.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

I do not agree that the tank meta was rushed. It's the opposite. Let's look at the history of the two tanks PLD & WAR and then look at the new tank, DRK.

As I said, WAR started bad in 2.0. It had the Wrath mechanic, which was nice for gameplay, but it was clunky. Wrath had the healing bonus, not Defiance. WAR was more often put at the choice of keeping Wrath to receive more healing than spend it to heal itself. Which was counter intuitive. Should I receive more heals, or heal myself?

WAR had lots of clunk defensively. It had no defensive CDs outside of Foresight(lol) and ToB that lasted half what it lasts for now. Holmgang was a horrible version of Tempered Will. Vengeance was just a give me 1 wrath every 2 minutes. Defiance was just 25% more HP at the cost of 25% of your damage. It was oGCD then because it was WAR's only stance and it was really crap. WAR lacked the passive mitigation (no shield) and lacked proactive mitigation (CDs).

When SE decided to fix WAR, they didn't just slap on Rampart or Hallowed Ground on WAR (which was what it needed), instead they looked at their whole toolkit, and gave them fixes here and there, resulting in a more comprehensive toolkit and making WAR an overall better tank. There was an outcry on the forums of how 2.1 WAR was going to be OP and a better MT than PLD, some even provided good math (average mitigation on CDs and IB, eHP analysis, etc) to prove it. But the stigma from 2.0 remained and WAR was relegated to OT.

WAR had offensive Synergy in 2.0, and the class's overall synergy with itself skyrocketed with 2.1 fixes. For whatever purpose you use your abilities, you can make them work together for added benefit. i.e. Even berserk (offensive ability) can be used defensively by providing Wrath to speed up IB, increased heal from IB and Bloodbath, coupled with Vengeance for more damage and Bloodbath drain, and stronger heals from Second Wind and Equilibrium.

On the other hand, PLD was considered "good" from the get-go in 2.0. The main design decision was to drop the clunky heal-for-aggro mechanics and focus on straightforward mitigation. PLD wasn't as well thought as WAR was, but it was better in 2.0. PLD had no need to stance dance as most fights were designed for the tank to stay in tank stance as long as it was tanking. PLD could change stances, and with tank swaps being so prevalent in those days (T2, Titan Ex, Ifrit Ex, etc) PLD losing a GCD switching from ShO to SwO was a good thing as it gave the other tank some time to build aggro right after provoke. That coupled with PLD not needing MP for anything outside of Flash made the MP cost irrelevant. For those reasons, PLD stances weren't considered clunk. It was better than WAR dropping Defiance after swap then popping it (still wouldn't get 25% HP back and required a heal) early to build up wrath in time before they take it back. That or spend Infuriate right after the swap which isn't ideal if boss slapped you with multiple hurt in short periods (T2, Ifrit Ex) as it removed the option of back-to-back IB.

So throughout the course of 2.xx series, SE only looked at PLD for potential enmity issues that arose where people doing more DPS or WAR OTs caused issues. Like my favorite saying: "Defiance or no Defiance, an early BB crit WILL rip hate of the poor PLD". As a result, PLD's early "clunk" was never removed or even considered clunk. PLD wasn't rushed, it always had issues that were overlooked. Now with content being more DPS centric, people feel the urge to "stance dance" and switch stances on the fly for added DPS/mitigation, the overlooked "clunk" started to affect the playstyle. I'm not saying PLD stances should be changed to be oGCDs like WAR, I'm saying it's a design choice that doesn't fit today's meta. The class wasn't rushed, it just suffers from some oversight in its original design.

DRK is more of a PLD clone with WAR slapped on it and feels rushed, so it shares some of the clunk on the PLD's toolkit. Similar tank stance that is also on the GCD? If DRK has 1 stance, why wasn't it oGCD like Defiance? Or is it because it has an immediate increase of eHP and healing by 25% so it is on the GCD? Aside from Grit, why does the toolkit conflict with itself? Heck, Dark Dance conflicts with itself, increasing evasion reduces parry. Yes evasion is better mitigation than parry, but if the skill's main goal is to force more parries, why reduce it by added evasion? The class is so rushed that it doesn't have a base class and has the "extra job" tag!

DRK should've come with a slashing debuff. It made no sense that it didn't have it. I mean if you want "any combination of two" to work, you need to make sure that "any combination of two" has what it needs. PLD/DRK just don't mesh well together other than covering both STR and INT down. It's not even "super defensive" since DRK doesn't add to PLD's defenses like a WAR could. So if WAR provides offensively to the other two, and PLD adds defensively to the other two, DRK adds nothing to the other two. Now we are pigeonholed into taking WAR so it provides offensive and/or defensively to the other tanks. If DRK provided the slashing debuff, then PLD/DRK could work well. Instead of added utility, DRK decided to conflict with MNK by giving INT down without the blunt resist. So unlike WAR providing slashing debuff for NIN increasing its DPS, DRK just doesn't mesh with MNK, you don't want the two in the same group basically. It makes no sense that DRK provides blunt resist down of course. It just proves that DRK was rushed and the INT down was just slapped on its kit as a polar opposite to STR down.

Another thing, INT down should've been on Power Slash (making the skill more useable) and Delirium should've added Slashing down. This way (for balance reasons) all three classes provide their defensive debuff on their weakest combo. Why should DRK be the exception? Power Slash ends up being the least used combo in the game for any class because DRK has no reason to use it outside of initial aggro lead.

Over all, of the three tanks, DRK was the rushed one and has the worst design decisions. Only reason DRK is fairing well is because content allowed it. If DRK dealt the same DPS as PLD, DRK would be the one left aside as PLD definitely mitigates more even in this magic heavy environs. If physical tank busters resurface, DRK's sever lack of physical mitigation will be a problem as well. People already call DRK the worst tank in A2S despite its AoE DPS prowess.

My point: Just because content didn't make a class's glaring flaws show doesn't mean the class doesn't have problems. On the flipside, just because content made a class drop out of favor doesn't mean the class has problems.