A history of our beloved tanks, and moving forward. [5.0 wishlists]

[Grimoire-M]

I'd say give WAR get more self-healing again. Or make Defiance's healing bonus work with healing abilities while nerfing Equilibrium's base potency to factor in the bonus. Hell, make Equilibrium restore TP and heal in both stances but give more TP in DPS stance.

In general I would like to see more reasons for tanks to be in tank stance. One thought I had to 'force' it without feeling bad necessarily is to make the DPS stances give aggro reduction, and to reduce the damage penalties of tank stances in general (PLD and DRK in particular could use it more than WAR). Raids would obviously need to change to support this with higher auto attack and buster damage but I agree that if this happens then we need to see all tanks get oGCD stance swaps. It shouldn't cost any resources to do either. Sword Oath may need to get looked at because I can hear people getting mad about dropping free auto damage from swapping in/out already.

Giving tanks more ways to mitigate damage via short cooldowns would also facilitate this but I feel that stance swaps are a better way to go about it. PLD has a lot of ways to do this already so they just need more oath gauge generation and a DPS way to spend it while in sword oath. Perhaps as a way to spend Shield Swipe? Or a new skill that replaces it in sword oath? DRK has TBN but realistically they need more. Probably as debuffs as many people have mentioned.

I kinda feel Shake It Off doesn't make sense in WAR's kit despite being so good to have. I'd consider reworking it as part of a utility trim to make WAR less desirable.

I dislike the knockback immunity skills in general given how they trivialize mechanics and the different cooldowns they all have. Arm's Length is probably the most balanced in that regard. I'd say every class should have access to that and all of them should be 60s cooldowns. Yes, even BRD and MCH should get it. Tempered Will could be the tank Role Action equivalent for sure.

Finally, make Requiescat a ranged attack. PLD doesn't need a gap closer if they can get their Holy Spirit spam window in without needing to be in melee range.

[Duskane]

Stances should be a bigger factor to gameplay, instead of just toggable buffs. Grit, Defiance, Shield Oath can basically just not exist

I feel this is only a shield oath issue

Because the others do effect game play as defiance literally changes moves and effects of equilibrium.
Grit is a big part of aoe kit DRK of since blood price and also soul eater hp recovery.

Of course if they could do more that would be nice but i also think these "buffs' are nothing to ignore .
but shield oath needs some work,
Heal potency from defiance suits paladin more imo.

[Speaks]

I am really going to have to disagree with your Stormblood chart in general. I currently play both WAR and PLD in Ex content and this chart absolutely does not match up at all with my findings.

[Ekimmak]

I'd personally knock down DRK AoE in Stormblood a peg. It relies on you banking a lot of your MP in advance. Coming into an adds phase without MP is a legit reason to turn off Darkside, because Blood Price is going to do absolutely nothing if you can't get off several unleashes or abyssal drains.

[shao32]

Good job with the graphic report, its simple and clear with Who is the problem of tank balance.

[Kabooa]

I feel this is only a shield oath issue

Because the others do effect game play as defiance literally changes moves and effects of equilibrium.
Grit is a big part of aoe kit DRK of since blood price and also soul eater hp recovery.

Of course if they could do more that would be nice but i also think these "buffs' are nothing to ignore .
but shield oath needs some work,
Heal potency from defiance suits paladin more imo.

Oh right. Big single target hit and big single target hit. So distinct.

[Dzian]

I do think you've overrated paladins mitigation personally.
it's a long way from excellent generally speaking. if you will permit to elaborate:-

Rampart is a given all tanks are equal there. so no real room for comment.

Sentinel though is a bit weird. for what it does its cool down is far to long. there is basically nothing in the game that sentinel is strong enough for but vengance or whatever drk has isn't. that extra 10% just isn't needed and that extra 60 seconds on the cool down is just far too much.

Shelltron too is also weird. at 70 its quite nice in a single target. you can build the guage quite quick but it's problems lie in the fact it's only good for 1 single hit. which makes it far less effective /borderline useless in any group pull or multi hit situation.

Bullwark has been pretty much laughable even before they nerfed sheild swipe and with the way the games mechanics work RNG mitigation is always going to be a joke it's just too unreliable.

Hallowed ground is pretty nice admiteedly but again suffers from a massive cooldown in comparison to holmgang / whatever drks invuln is.

Group mitigation? now yeah paladin is pretty awesome here but all of that is stuff i personally would consider to be under the category of utility.

[Saeno]

I am really going to have to disagree with your Stormblood chart in general. I currently play both WAR and PLD in Ex content and this chart absolutely does not match up at all with my findings.

That's fine, what do you think would better represent those tanks in each category?

[Saeno]

I do think you've overrated paladins mitigation personally.
it's a long way from excellent generally speaking. if you will permit to elaborate:-

Rampart is a given all tanks are equal there. so no real room for comment.

Sentinel though is a bit weird. for what it does its cool down is far to long. there is basically nothing in the game that sentinel is strong enough for but vengeance or whatever drk has isn't. that extra 10% just isn't needed and that extra 60 seconds on the cool down is just far too much.

Shelltron too is also weird. at 70 its quite nice in a single target. you can build the gauge quite quick but it's problems lie in the fact it's only good for 1 single hit. which makes it far less effective /borderline useless in any group pull or multi hit situation

When I made this chart, I made it in mind for all tank busters that tanks have taken within that expansion. Also, I took into consideration the strength of each tank in patch 2.5, 3.5 and 4.4. This is important for PLD because as the shields get better, PLD's blocking becomes stronger and more frequent. Right now with an Omega Shield, a PLD can block 30% of any single hit or two hits with 100 gauge. 30% on its own is the same mitigation as WAR's and DRK's strongest standalone mitigators (Vegneance, Shadow wall/Dark mind). Especially in the Omega tier, all of the tank busters are single hits which you can mitigate for a huge portion with just Sheltron. Also, Cover works both as personal mitigation and utility because the skill is affected by your own personal mitigation, and in optimized strategies, a PLD using cover is part of the tanks Cd rotation. For these reasons, I listed PLD's mitigation as excellent.

Also, the only multi hit tank busters in Stormblood are the Flare breaths into Flatten into Flare breaths in Ultimate coil, Ravensclaw in Ultimate coil and Akh morn from Golden Bahamut. In these fights, no single tank takes all of those busters as they can't due to the debuffs put onto them by Nael and Twin. You can map out your CD's to share tank Cds across all of these hits. As for Akh morn, while you can argue that PLD can't block each of these hits, realistically you can use your block to mitigate the first Akh morn, which is by far the hardest hitting one. The rest of the akh morns can be dealt with. On the topic of Akh morn, Hallowed Ground eating a 4 hit Akh morn on its own is really good.

[Saeno]

I'd personally knock down DRK AoE in Stormblood a peg. It relies on you banking a lot of your MP in advance. Coming into an adds phase without MP is a legit reason to turn off Darkside, because Blood Price is going to do absolutely nothing if you can't get off several unleashes or abyssal drains.

I think Quietus and Salted Earth are very powerful tools in Aoe situations. With a blood weapon+ quietus, you're getting a LOT of MP back which then fuels your Blackest Nights which then fuels more quietus and Abyssal drains.

it does take a bit of set up, but I don't think its fair to score DRk's aoe on its worst possible situation when its best possible situation is really good. Also, I think using blood price in aoe makes sense, but in reality, you're going to do better with blood weapon due to the interaction of blood weapon+ quietus. It's unfortunate, but blood price doesn't have a place in aoe pulls at the moment.