I don't think you need a separate armor type to keep the job aesthetic. There are always job-specific sets and glamors.

Quote Originally Posted by Kalise View Post
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People really like these quote-by-quote conversation-style argument posts for some reason. I think it's because it makes them feel like they're deconstructing point-by-point, but they're tiresome to actually read through.

Self-sustain
I don't really understand why WAR has any form of lifesteal at all. I don't care how significant it is. It's like giving WAR a shield to block with. You'd be eroding PLD's job identity, and it doesn't fit with the job aesthetic. Of course, if you don't feel that WAR has any significant self-sustain, then you won't miss it if it's gone.

This TBN/self-sustain point keeps coming up. It's kind of baffling. TBN is mitigation. Grit Souleater does count as self-sustain, but people have been asking for the Grit requirement to be removed for a very long time. For practical purposes, locking something behind Grit means that it might as well not exist.

Mobility
Onslaught is an on-demand knockback prevention and mobility tool. That's on top of IR and Holmgang, which do actually get used to prevent knockbacks on occasion. The best cases are when you have a situation which you have to mitigate a big hit while preventing a knockback (like back in O5S) or when your burst window happens to line up with it. That's a lot of versatility.

DPS
Burst is a tricky issue to balance. As you pointed out, it really represents a spectrum. Shorter burst windows are more powerful and easier to execute than longer ones. But it should be a consideration when determining a job's total dps, the same way raid buffs are supposed to be. The job with the highest burst should have the lowest maximum dps.

Mitigation
Homogenization is not a bad word. Every healer needs to be able to heal. Every tank needs to be able to mitigate. When something is a fundamental requirement to perform a given role, then you need to create equivalents. You only run into problems when these "equivalents" aren't actually equal.

I'm not a fan of mitigation moves with a specific damage type. We tried the whole "physical tank/magical tank" dichotomy with PLD and DRK in Heavensward, but it just meant that WAR was good at everything.

I also think that the Role action system needs to go. I don't mind skill trees when they're properly designed, but that can be done at a job specific level. I'd like Reprisal and my old Shadowskin animation back, at least for flavour purposes.

Tuning is important, but tanks need to be reassessed from the ground up. It's not good enough to say that a job has a given ability because it's always been there.

And I'm sorry to say, if they'd actually done what they promised and properly addressed the tank inbalance going into Stormblood, my feelings on the issue wouldn't nearly be as strong. They failed. And if it means that jobs like WAR, SCH, and BRD get benched for the first time in five years, maybe that won't be such a bad thing. I would much rather they err on the side of too much nerfs than risk revisiting the past for a third expansion running. I just don't have the patience for it.