Interesting Tank Research

[Izsha]

The data does succinctly point that. Now if we're to address a brutally short summary:

* DRK is on the same level as PLD and WAR only at the top percentiles (This is expected.)
* Tanks in general don't know how to tank (shocking no-one)
* Raid shields are a thing for heals and the community (another non-shocker)

I think this paragraph puts it quite well:



This just brings more data that the job does have an issue in design, on why its rather clunky and a rather jarring experience for casual players vs the other two who show better design overall. The floor was already high in HW, but that high floor was rewarding. Now its just unnecessary.

That's a bit of a cop out though. The post points out where (some) of the problems actually are and they aren't where people tended to think they were. Also, theres a bit of a jump from "Drk isn't being played well" to "Drk is to hard". Those aren't the same things. For example, one of the findings was that Drks do not use their keystone defensive actions (TBN and Dark Mind) as often as War/Pld use theirs. Drks tend to use TBN only for tank busters instead of as often as possible (according to the study). I don't think that is somehow a result of Drk being 'to hard to play'. Using TBN and Dark Mind more often is certainly within most players capability. The data can be used to point to areas that we are making bad decisions, such as "maybe I should try to use TBN more often". There is the general "People don't know how to tank" aspect present in all 3, but I think its a bit of a cop out to say "Well drk is just to hard and that's why people suck". I think part of it is because the public discourse discourages good habits and reinforces some bad habits. We can use this as a starting point to take a fresh look at how we personally are playing and how we are telling other people to play by using data to analyze play instead of 'common sense' that we have built up without good data to back it up. Right now there is a it of a negative feed back loop in some of these areas between using FF logs to justify a problem, but people are making poor decisions in play resulting in poor logs.

I see this study as a place to start over with a fresh perspective instead of hacking the old horses. I find this section to be the best take away.

I hope that this study proves eye-opening to the public, as it has been influential to myself, and will be influential in my teaching style as far as my mentorship in The Balance.

Instead of trying to figure out how to make this stuff fit into the common camps to support our old positions, maybe its overdue to actually take a fresh look at this stuff.

[Mahrze]

That's a bit of a cop out though.

It isn't. The only thing that is not a "non sequitur" in that link is that we all should strive to improve. Which is a given but that comes with its own caveats (all grossly non-measurable):

* How fast the average player adapts to content and its challenges.
* How the meta strategy is spread and how it tends to exclude things. (see people vs skip soar)
* We still don't know the dimension of what is to come for DRK since all is known until last second.

The most important thing to take away from all that is to encourage people to "improve your performance". Otherwise, all those numbers only apply to "the top" and doesn't translate to the lower levels, where the most horrible practices are pervasive and the most misinformation is spread like butter.

And I think the average player would need these improvements and for us to make it easier for them to reach them.