Tank adjustments we can agree on?

[Brannigan]

If I were given free rein to try balancing out the tanks, I think the goals would be

-establish a strong playstyle & identity for paladin
-bring paladin and dark knight to warrior's level
-relax group composition requirements

So global changes:
-STR down and INT down are changed to damage down (for dragon kick as well). Some boss attacks slightly weakened to compensate.
-Parry stat needs to be revamped entirely, not sure what would be best at the moment
-Fending accessories also need to be changed

Paladin specific:
-Shield Swipe changed to 160 potency and combos into every paladin WS. Pacification removed. Can be used after blocking.
-Sword Oath damage lowered to compensate for Swipe changes
-Savage Blade and Halone enmity modifiers increased
-Enhanced Awareness rolled into base ability
-Enhanced Shield Swipe added at level 44, gives Shield Swipe a 20% chance to be usable when you or a party member takes magic damage.
-Sheltron activates Shield Swipe upon taking magic damage.
-Divine Veil recast to 90 seconds
-Tempered Will recast to 2 minutes, also reduces TP cost of Weapon Skills by 100% for the duration
-While in Sword Oath, Covered damage is reduced by 20%
-Clemency cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds.
-Shield Bash TP cost reduced to 40, leaves debuff that increases TP cost of Shield Bash by 165 for 15 seconds.

It's kind of a lot, but it's all centered around getting swipe procs. This lets you increase your damage by using swipe at the right time. Paladin is still weaker against magic damage than the other two tanks, but with no INT/STR debuff any more the gap isn't as bad. Paladin's physical superiority is also slightly decreased by the elimination of STR debuff.

The Cover and Tempered Will changes are there to make them more universally useful, and the Shield Bash change is to avoid a situation like A4S, where bringing a paladin means that you're forcing your DPS or other tank to do stun mechanics (or throwing away 90 TP every 30s). It still breaks combos and takes a GCD, however. Veil and Clemency are straight buffs, because they need it.

Warrior changes:
-They don't really need this, but I think it would be "neat" if Bloodbath was 30 seconds without the trait, and the Blood Shower trait made your Bloodbath heal nearby party members as well.

Dark Knight changes:
-Sole Survivor restores 200 TP as well when its requirements are met.
-Reprisal changed to: Parries the next physical attack and retaliates with a 210 potency attack that lowers the target's damage dealt by 10% for 20 seconds. 30 second recast.
-Dark Arts Power Slash modifier increased.
-Dark Arts Scourge: Decreases the target's slashing resistance by 10% for 30 seconds.
-Salted Earth: also restores (5-10 TP, haven't run numbers) every tick to party members who are standing in it.

Trying to address any lingering TP or utility issues as well as allowing drk/pld to become available without a ninja. The Reprisal change would let them mitigate physical attacks at the same frequency as paladin and warrior, if not at the same potency, and makes their raid utility less reliant on RNG (though I think current reprisal is fine).

Anyway, that's just me. What I expect will actually happen is:
-enmity modifiers increased for paladin
-potency boosted on shield swipe
-divine veil recast reduction
-royal authority potency increase
and they'll call it a day.

[eagledorf]

I know a lot of people like this idea of Swipe comboing into a finisher and I also think it would be fun, but I'm also not entirely sure about a mechanic as twitchy as this that only increases DPS for a tank. I would rather they just increase the potency and keep the added enmity from it low to ensure Goring Blade, Halone, and hate all remain high priorities priorities even when it procs so that tanking remains the primary concern. It would be fantastic if the Pacification actually did something so it regains its original interest entirely. (You also have to consider, if you got a proc after the first step of your combo with your adjustment you wouldn't really use it so this still means Shield Swipe is very situational compared to just a strait-up potency buff. Depending on when you got it it would be used, ignored, or held one GCD.)

I quite like the Shield Bash idea. It's a clever way to make Shield Bash more usable without making chain-stun any cheaper than it currently is. However, for it to really be optimal to use it shouldn't cancel combos. A cancelled Royal Authority is a potency loss of 230 so a Monk has to hold their Steel Peek for the entire 40 seconds before it's better for overall DPS to have the Paladin cancel their combo (it's like 55 seconds if you just divide potencies, but assuming Monk potency is worth like 15-20% more than Paladin potency in Sword Oath it's like 40).

The Sole Survivor idea is also clever and I like it in that it would be a fun mechanic. I don't know that your idea would be perfectly balanced (maybe it should only regen TP in Grit since DRK already has Blood Weapon for when OT), but it's a neat solution to DRK's TP issues.

The Salted Earth idea means double DRK would give basically unlimited free TP for all melee so it's not a good idea at all since you basically use it on cooldown anyway.

[Brannigan]

(You also have to consider, if you got a proc after the first step of your combo with your adjustment you wouldn't really use it so this still means Shield Swipe is very situational compared to just a strait-up potency buff. Depending on when you got it it would be used, ignored, or held one GCD.)

I think that's good, though. Every class should have ways it can screw up its execution and ways it can succeed. Plus, you have Sheltron and Bulwark to force out procs when you want them sometimes. I hadn't really considered double dark knight with salted earth, but I guess if they just got the slashing debuff that would be enough utility along with reprisal.

[Cynric]

My over complicated fix for living dead

Type Weaponskill
Acquired Level 50 Dark Knight
Requires DRK
TP Cost 0
Cast Time Instant
Cooldown 300s
Range 0y
Radius 0y
Description Grants the effect of Living Dead. When HP is reduced to 0 while under the effect of Living Dead, instead of becoming KO'd, your status will change to Walking Dead. Living Dead Duration: 10s
Walking Dead Duration: 10s
While under the effect of Walking Dead, HP remaining will change to a negative number equivalent to maximum HP, the HP bar color will turn red to signify Walking Dead status. Any healing done will lower the negative number closer to a positive threshold and any damage taken will increase the negative threshold(capped by 0 HP and maximum HP respectively) After 10 seconds walking dead status will end and the remaining negative HP will be subtracted from the Dark Knight's Maximum HP.

I.e. 10000/10000 DRK takes damage reducing it past 1 they enter Walking Dead status, HP bar turns red and HP turns to -10000/10000 , gets cured for 4000 between Soul Eater and a Cure I, HP now equals -6000/10000 (the amount healed would also be shown as blue in the HP bar so in this scenario about half the bar is red and half is blue) If the duration of walking dead ends with the DRK at -6000 they would have 4000 HP left when the duration ends. If the 10 seconds ends with the Negative HP / Maximum HP equaling out to zero i.e.-10000/10000 then the Dark Knight would die. Damage can still be taken during Walking Dead status however most Attacks will not kill the Dark Knight.

To Further expand on that, If you are hit for 13k and you are Walking Dead and your maximum HP is 7000, then your HP would go back to -7000/7000 untill you are healed. Attacks will not push you beyond negative maximum HP and healing will not bring your Walking Dead HP past 0.

[Kiri_Tqnikaze]

Personally I don't wanna see any major changes to the tanks we have now. I feel it has more to do with SE and Yoshi's team not delivering well thought out mechanic driven raids.
There should be parts of a fight that only a PLD excels at, parts where only DRK excels, and parts where WAR is needed for more than just massive dps spikes. But no one mechanic/enemy should force a certain party makeup in order to clear. Meaning that all tanks are viable and due to the raid design a party can be encouraged to experiment with multiple different party makeups.
I understand why we don't want homogenization between any of the party roles, but having all these varied discussions encouraged developers to please everybody. We should be calling for redesigned raid mechanics not redesigned classes/jobs.
I'm not sure how many others will agree, but I hope anyone who read this took it with a grain of salt because we all know what opinions are like.

[Dante_V]

The negative HP thing makes living dead a greater liability as once you get back up to "even" you are effectively susceptible to a one hit kill which isn't the case now. It sounds like it would be worse than it already is. I've never really even needed to use living dead at this point and have been raiding savage for like 2 months now.

[Cynric]

The negative HP thing makes living dead a greater liability as once you get back up to "even" you are effectively susceptible to a one hit kill which isn't the case now. It sounds like it would be worse than it already is. I've never really even needed to use living dead at this point and have been raiding savage for like 2 months now.

When the duration ends Walking Dead HP is subtracted from Maximum HP, So after 10 seconds if you're healed to 0 an you have a maximum HP of 14000 ,14000 - 0 would be 14000, so you'd have 14000 HP.

The only way you could get 1 hit killed coming out of walking dead state would be if the healers only healed you for a small amount and a tankbuster is coming.

It's basically just a gimmicky holmgang to match the thematic of the class.

[eagledorf]

It's better thematically (that's literally how I thought LD would work when I first heard about the skill), but I think it would actually be a nerf compared to now. For example, Benediction only heals you one full HP bar worth so it would not top you up from negative HP.

[Cynric]

It's better thematically (that's literally how I thought LD would work when I first heard about the skill), but I think it would actually be a nerf compared to now. For example, Benediction only heals you one full HP bar worth so it would not top you up from negative HP.

Yeah it's actually how I thought it would work originally too. I'm not sure mechanically how it would work(ideally bene would just put you at zero but you wouldn't need to waste benediction on walking dead anymore either) but it was just kind of one of those things where I wanted to try to throw something out there to keep with the theme but sort of fix its issues. Because the main issues with Living Dead in my opinion are 1) The CD is too long for the effect it gives which 2) isn't exactly lasting. You get 8 seconds of Invincibility if your healers are doing math or saving a CD to heal you at the right time or you get to eat 1 fatal attack before they panic and bring you back to full effectively wasting the entire duration of the skill.

There's also the chance that if you have a notification and they see you use living Dead they'll just panic heal you right away instead of taking the time to DPS freely causing you to waste the CD which then takes a whopping 300 seconds to come back.

I think with how not effective Living Dead is the 300 s CD is kind of terrible.

The funny thing is Living Dead is extremely effective in PVP as you can't die once you're in Walking Dead state and you can self purify it around 9 seconds. But it's nowhere near as powerful in PVE.

[eagledorf]

Living Dead is actually pretty much equal to Hallowed Ground in A4 Savage because the tank buster lasts 12 seconds. It's actually a bit better with the shorter cooldown.

Holmgang is pretty crippled in A4, but the short cooldown still makes is a good skill. The "oh F*ck" button is pretty well balanced already. It would maybe be good if Living Dead triggered a sound effect or something to make it more obvious to DF healers.