New Prelim Tank updates

[Grey_D94]

Mostly along the lines of what I expected. I hoped they would go a little farther with Clemency though.

And Sword Oath. Clemency and Divine Veil are officially useful with these changes, but PLD's poor Sword Oath will still be lacking so much, in my opinion.

[Rei_Fails]

I think the idea is that DRK offers nothing specifically as an OT.
Though, to be honest, the only thing PLD brings "as an OT" is Cover.

Except it does, Delirium, the same thing a MNK is brought for. Paladin though does offer more, Divine Veil for large AoE, Clemency, Cover, and Halone. DRK is definitely behind, but it's not in a horrible spot as an OT. Shame Reprisal is locked behind parry procs.

[Syzygian]

It just seems like the same core problems between the tanks haven't gone anywhere. If anything its worse now b/c DRK and PLD will be at each other's throats for that MT slot, while WAR looks on wondering wtf is wrong with them.

Oh yeah and... Has anyone noticed that the tank stances having increased enmity to make up for the damage nerf is likely going to indirectly make it harder to tank out of tank stance? Wonder how that will play out.

[Sapphidia]

Couple of curious side effects of the paladin change (which don't affect much but figured I'd mention).

By boosting Goring Blade to 240 in combo, it means that Goring+Riot is actually more total potency than Savage+Rage of Halone, even ignoring the DoT. This means that from 54 to 59 the optimal paladin dps combo is spamming Goring Blade combo and not doing Rage of Halone at all. The Rage combo will be even less desirable to use as it's such a loss compared to the others.

Secondly, Fracture is now even -more- of a DPS loss in most situations. It sort of always was, but a lot of people inserted it in as the 10th GCD to prevent clipping Goring (which... wasnt a problem anyway). It was even DPS without the 10% slashing, a slight dps loss with the slashing debuff, and potentially a tiny dps gain if used at certain skill speeds as the last GCD in a FoF. Now though, it's unquestionably a DPS -loss- in all circumstances. Just more reason to keep running Protect!

[Shurrikhan]

Am I the only person disappointed that Warrior did not get a thundercloud proc trait for Fracture ;D

Jk, glad to see some pally love, not pleased that DRK only received a tp cost reduction; might have to consider swapping tank buddies for progression here on out.

Damn, now that I imagine that... it'd be really awesome on a Berserker/Reaver, if not on a Warrior itself... But that aside,

What were you looking for for DRK? I too don't really think the TP adjustments did a damn thing, but what then would have?

[Syzygian]

Damn, now that I imagine that... it'd be really awesome on a Berserker/Reaver, if not on a Warrior itself... But that aside,

What were you looking for for DRK? I too don't really think the TP adjustments did a damn thing, but what then would have?

DRK needed a pinch more physical mitigation, perhaps a buff to Dark Dance, and it needed a reason to ever ever be brought to a raid as an OT. Whether that's buffing Delirium outside of Grit, giving a slashing debuff or hell even a magic defense debuff, making Sole Survivor a TP/MP refresh out of Grit when cast on a party member, whatever, there's any number of things they could have done that they didn't. DRK is a Delirium bitch in the OT role, and it actually can potentially do LESS damage in that slot than it could have MTing.

No tank reasonably competes WAR for the OT slot (or even the MT slot if the WAR really wants to take that too). That's the problem, and these changes have left that pretty well untouched.

Edit: The only thing I can see is that DRK MT/PLD OT might have just become a PINCH more viable, depending on how helpful PLD's utilities wind up being in the new raids, but then you still need a NIN, and one that you have to ask to do a suboptimal rotation at that.

[Ragology]

If Samurai is added as a tank, maybe it will be an off tank to compete with WAR.

[FallenWings]

Well if the possibility that holding aggro outside of tank stance is impossible comes true then no Warrior will ever want to be MT again.
Once you go Deliverance, you never go back.

But then neither will DRK or PLD in that regard.

And that is my issue with skills that require a hit to proc. WAR is the same MT or OT, DRK loses out alot if its not getting hit, and PLD doesn't want to get hit when it is using its (largely unnecessary)support abilities as well as wanting to get hit for that sweet, sweet Shield Swipe.

Where is the Sheltron change? Why does Rage of Halone still suck so much but we have to still use it for certain situations? Why is AoE damage still nonexistent for PLDs? Why are stances still annoying to dance in?

[TouchandFeel]

Generally liking the tank changes and I'm glad PLD is finally getting some love, especially with some buffs to their utility skills.

Things that I think could have maybe even should have in some cases been done.

DRK
- Decrease to Grit activation MP cost (not a whole lot, just a smidge)
- "Fixes" to Living Dead: Better/actual visual messaging for the transition to Walking Dead (my main issue with the ability), maybe making it so healing the DRK doesn't remove the WD buff with maybe a reduced duration (-2 seconds?) for balance.
- Some way to use Reprisal or at least it's debuff as OT (DRK has the weakest raid utility by far).

PLD
- Cover: works on all damage types and has a longer range.
- Shield Swipe: a different or additional debuff that has more raid utility.
- Divine Veil: Better visual messaging for the application of the buff.

WAR
- Still a bit too good compared to the other tanks, other tanks either need a few more buffs to strengthen their own niche of raid utility or WAR needs to get some slight nerfs or adjustments to compensate.

Overall though the TP fixes, the PLD buffs and the Oath/Grit tweaks bring the tank classes or at least DRK and PLD much closer together which is great.

@Syzygian
I really like the idea of having Sole Survivor have a different effect out of Grit where it can be cast on a friendly as a refresh, gives DRK some much needed party/raid utility.

[Februs]

Well ... I'm not going to say that the changes are bad (they are definitely good), but they are not enough.

I'm very happy that Oaths do not cancel combos anymore (though they really should have also been made oGCD to boost total potency), but SwO is still next to useless. As things are now, the biggest benefit to being in SwO is not having the dmg reduction from ShO. They way things will be after the patch, the biggest benefit to SwO is still not being in ShO. Pld's get that benefit by simply dropping ShO. There's no real incentive actually activate SwO (+50 potency on auto attacks... yay....) over just dropping ShO. Regardless, I can live with it it.

My bigger concern is with Tp management. Reducing the Tp cost of a couple of Pld moves is not going to save their TP from flat-lining in longer fights, especially with constantly increasing skill speeds. They've done this before, and it did not work. Pld's just do not have enough oGCD's to sustain their Tp. I'm gonna give this the benefit of the doubt, but I have a feeling that Pld's will still be red-lining their Tp, especially by the end of the 3.0's life cycle.

I'm also a little off put by the ability adjustments (more by which moves they picked, rather than what they changed). Clemency is fine. 2 seconds is a nice change. Divine Veil is a fix, because it should really have always been like that ... Cover? Tempered Will? If anything, I would say that those two moves were in much greater need for adjustments for FAR longer than Clem and DV. TW is almost NEVER used in any fights in the entire game. When SE said they were making move adjustments, I thought that TW would, at the very least, have made the list.