Tank role action complaint time

[Gravton]

I don't play drk/war so I can't comment on their pro/cons. I do play PLD though. It baffles me as to why any pld thinks this change is good. All it did was take away our abilities so that we can re-equip them. On top of that we lost mercy stroke, stoneskin, foresight, Bloodbath, and fracture; so that we can get anticipation and shirk? Foresight was garbage in ARR when our def was like 1k, but now we are passing 5k...that would have been better than anticipation. Pld finally got an aoe attack and lose bloodbath. Why do mele dps have two self heals while the tanks (the focus of the damage)have one? Fracture is "meh", it wouldn't fit in our rotation now anyway. These changes aren't "garbage cause it's different", they are garbage because we didn't get much in the trade.

[Capn_Goggles]

For tanks, none of the role skills are mandatory, as in you can probably clear content without them, however interpreting a statement like that in the most literal sense is just being pedantic at that point. Rampart, Convalescence, Provoke, and Shirk are so mind-blowingly important to tanking that it makes one wonder why they would ever be considered anything but mandatory.

Calling role-actions imperfect is an egregious understatement. It's just cross-class abilities with a different coat of paint, complete with the same problems that plagued the old system; this time however they didn't even bother with the pretense that it's there to add customization, as it more accurately serves as the one-stop-shop for trying to piece back together the shattered remains of the abilities they gutted from your kit.

[MauvaisOeil]

Foresight was garbage in ARR when our def was like 1k, but now we are passing 5k...that would have been better than anticipation.

It would have been the same shit as it was. Because the curve or defense translation into damage reduction is scaled on level. Thus, the damage reduction would be proportional to what it was with 1K armor.

Now the skill was solely "stronger" with higher gear at the same exact level, but barely noticable.

[Lyth]

I think the main issue with the Role Action system is that it didn't benefit everyone equally. You can't look at it in terms of "Provoke is a PLD action", because tanks have always been expected to bring it. Likewise, most tanks brought Foresight, even if it wasn't the best cross-class action, purely because there often wasn't a good alternative.

You need only look at the numbers to see that not everyone had the same benefit. At present, PLD has 28 actions, WAR has 26 actions, and DRK has 25 actions. Incidentally, three out of the five actions on DRK (Low Blow, Reprisal, Scourge) were fairly high potency attacks that contributed to a significant portion of DRK's sustained dps, and DRK hasn't really been adequately compensated for their loss in the new skills.

While the role actions are a good step forward, I think the problem is direction. Are role actions supposed to be mandatory actions (Provoke, Rampart)? Are they supposed to be fight specific utility (Low Blow, Interject)? Was the goal to make a core set of abilities universally accessible by removing them from individual tanks and merging them? If so, why actions from some tanks (i.e. Low Blow, Brutal Swing) while keeping their equivalents on others (Shield Bash)? I'm also surprised that Divine Veil survived the advent of Reprisal being made cross-class, and that Raw Intuition survived the advent of Rampart being made cross-class. You can trace a lot of the complaints about imbalances in mitigation to some of these decisions.

I think if they want to commit to a small set of shared core abilities, a talent tree system makes more sense. Every tank needs Provoke. So instead of making you just commit a slot to it, choose a talent to either make it single target and ranged (i.e. standard) or PBAoE (i.e. Ultimatum). If you slot in a stun, choose between it being oGCD with a recast (i.e. Low Blow), or GCD with no recast (i.e. Shield Bash). If you take a parry move, choose between it having a lower proc chance with no risk of crits (perhaps by merging Awareness and Anticipation), and having a 100% parry chance and a risk of flank crits (Raw Intuition). If you take a raid-wide mitigation ability, choose between it being a single target debuff (i.e. Reprisal) or an AoE shield (Divine Veil). Remove the job exclusives if there's already a Role Action that covers the same function, because it's either redundant or essential.

[MauvaisOeil]

I think the main issue with the Role Action system is that it didn't benefit everyone equally. You can't look at it in terms of "Provoke is a PLD action", because tanks have always been expected to bring it. Likewise, most tanks brought Foresight, even if it wasn't the best cross-class action, purely because there often wasn't a good alternative.

You need only look at the numbers to see that not everyone had the same benefit. At present, PLD has 28 actions, WAR has 26 actions, and DRK has 25 actions. Incidentally, three out of the five actions on DRK (Low Blow, Reprisal, Scourge) were fairly high potency attacks that contributed to a significant portion of DRK's sustained dps, and DRK hasn't really been adequately compensated for their loss in the new skills.

While the role actions are a good step forward, I think the problem is direction. Are role actions supposed to be mandatory actions (Provoke, Rampart)? Are they supposed to be fight specific utility (Low Blow, Interject)? Was the goal to make a core set of abilities universally accessible by removing them from individual tanks and merging them? If so, why actions from some tanks (i.e. Low Blow, Brutal Swing) while keeping their equivalents on others (Shield Bash)? I'm also surprised that Divine Veil survived the advent of Reprisal being made cross-class, and that Raw Intuition survived the advent of Rampart being made cross-class. You can trace a lot of the complaints about imbalances in mitigation to some of these decisions.

I think if they want to commit to a small set of shared core abilities, a talent tree system makes more sense. Every tank needs Provoke. So instead of making you just commit a slot to it, choose a talent to either make it single target and ranged (i.e. standard) or PBAoE (i.e. Ultimatum). If you slot in a stun, choose between it being oGCD with a recast (i.e. Low Blow), or GCD with no recast (i.e. Shield Bash). If you take a parry move, choose between it having a lower proc chance with no risk of crits (perhaps by merging Awareness and Anticipation), and having a 100% parry chance and a risk of flank crits (Raw Intuition). If you take a raid-wide mitigation ability, choose between it being a single target debuff (i.e. Reprisal) or an AoE shield (Divine Veil). Remove the job exclusives if there's already a Role Action that covers the same function, because it's either redundant or essential.

That's an interesting thought about role action, I like it.

[SyzzleSpark]

I think if they want to commit to a small set of shared core abilities, a talent tree system makes more sense. Every tank needs Provoke. So instead of making you just commit a slot to it, choose a talent to either make it single target and ranged (i.e. standard) or PBAoE (i.e. Ultimatum). If you slot in a stun, choose between it being oGCD with a recast (i.e. Low Blow), or GCD with no recast (i.e. Shield Bash). If you take a parry move, choose between it having a lower proc chance with no risk of crits (perhaps by merging Awareness and Anticipation), and having a 100% parry chance and a risk of flank crits (Raw Intuition). If you take a raid-wide mitigation ability, choose between it being a single target debuff (i.e. Reprisal) or an AoE shield (Divine Veil). Remove the job exclusives if there's already a Role Action that covers the same function, because it's either redundant or essential.

This.

They could have made Role Actions infinitely more interesting and also consolidated so much more hotbar space by doing what they said they were going to do (part of which was "consolidating" cross class actions and weaker/lesser used abilities). So many skills in this game are almost never used out of conjunction with another. What is puzzling is that in many cases they did the opposite. They made 2 provokes, split Virus into two abilities, and made a crapton of role actions specific to a specific role and yet still manage to be exact copies of totally different actions specific to other roles.

[AlmightyDook]

The only one I find absolutely must have is rampart and provoke. And even then, there is nothing in this game that's mandatory until you get into savage content. And after reading the OP's post I highly doubt this applies to them.

[Capn_Goggles]

The only one I find absolutely must have is rampart and provoke. And even then, there is nothing in this game that's mandatory until you get into savage content. And after reading the OP's post I highly doubt this applies to them.

Like I said earlier, that's just being pedantic. Mandatory, in this case, means so powerful and important that it'd be beyond insane NOT to have it. Rampart and Provoke fall under this definition, trailing right behind them are Shirk and Convalescence which while not as strictly necessary are also stupidly important to tanks and only someone ignorant or stubborn would avoid taking them, and then that leaves us with one "optional" slot where Reprisal, Awareness, or Low Blow will go as needed.

[DRKoftheAzure]

On chrome for android its in the "..." menu top right.

I am on PC and using google chrome... no such otion exists...

[DRKoftheAzure]

snip.

Problem with that is that some tanks should have a primary tanking niche and secondary tanking niche. PLD was great for interrupting enemy abilities and spells while providing protection for MT but also has a shield for MTing, while WAR has crapton of HP but could have been DPS if enrage timer was thing in fights, DRK had AoE tanking but felt like it should specialized in buffs and debuffs for mitigation and damage output. But PLD got more improvements and WAR is still more or less the same while DRK got sevirly nerfed.