Why having a dedicated MT and dedicated OT is a TERRIBLE idea

[Kaedan]

What you have failed to demonstrate is why 2mt/2OT provides more choice than 4 tanks.

I never tried to demonstrate that or claimed that was the case. I said that right now, for the 0.1% of content where you actually need optimal setups, we only have 1 optimal option available (WAR MT and PLD OT). What having 2 MT and 2 OT will do is give us 4 times the number of "optimal" setups.

You claim it still has as much choice because in a world with 2 mt and 2 OT, you can just 'swap them' anyway because the meta only matters to 1%.

Again, I don't think you're understanding what I actually said. What I said is that the fact two tanks will be more suited to MT and 2 tanks will be more suited to OT is irrelevant to 99.9% of the content of the game. Being more suited to OT doesn't mean you can't MT and being more suited to MT doesn't mean you can't OT. So for 99.9% of content, you will have 12 tank combinations available. It's only for that 0.1% of content where we will be "limited" to 4 optimal setups. That's a pretty good trade off to avoid homogenization.

Your logic doesnt make any sense.

That's because you have demonstrated you didn't understand what I said.

The only thing that should homogenic between tanks is the lower level, base foundation of skills. Every tank should have a minimal tool set for tanking that is mechanically the same, maybe until level 30. But after 30, homogenization is really, really bad and is a game-killer. That is not "doomsday", it's plain old fact from objective observation of 2 decades of MMOs. MMOs that homogenize their classes have always signaled that to be the beginning of the end of quality content development.

[Kalise]

I said that right now, for the 0.1% of content where you actually need optimal setups, we only have 1 optimal option available (WAR MT and PLD OT). What having 2 MT and 2 OT will do is give us 4 times the number of "optimal" setups.

That is not necessarily the case.

Just because there are now 2 dedicated "MT" and 2 dedicated "OT" jobs, doesn't automatically mean that the 2 jobs within a sub-role are actually balanced.

For example, if WAR and DRK were just shoved into the "MT" sub-role as is. You'd still never see DRK in meta comps.

The only way that a "MT/OT" division would actually create 4x the number of options for optimal set ups over the current "WAR MT + PLD OT" is if balancing was done to make the MT's equivalent to each other and the OT's equivalent to each other.

At which point, why not just go the whole way and make all 4 tanks equivalent of each other without having to then arbitrarily design a divide into the role.

MMOs that homogenize their classes have always signaled that to be the beginning of the end of quality content development.

Only when they homogenize everything about classes.

WoW for years (Including during its peak) had "Homogenized" Tanks. In the sense that they all had at least 1 strong CD skill to use to mitigate a TB. Later, they all were "Homogenized" in that they all received active mitigation skills. They had "Homogenized" Taunts. "Homogenized" DPS outputs.

Yet, every tank was different.

Each strong CD was unique in how it worked, but they still all had a button to press for when they needed to mitigate the big tank buster.

They all had the same taunt, so they could all perform tank swaps equally.

They all had active mitigation skills that would reduce incoming damage between CD usage, albeit they were all different (Which also lead to some interesting synergy between optimal healers to capitalize on how a particular tanks active mitigation worked. I.e. The HoT healers were better suited for Pally/War Tanks and their more consistent damage intake. While bursty healers could fare better healing Druid/Monks that had spikes of damage when their evasion checks failed etc)

They all had different DPS rotations and gameplay. They were merely tuned to make DPS output be roughly the same.

Equality in the core kit =/= copy/pasted jobs. It just means that jobs can actually perform their role more evenly across the board.

It's like how healers all have a Raise and access to Esuna and Protect, these are key aspects to healing. If a particular job didn't have them that would make them more unique, yes, but it wouldn't be a good design.

[Kaedan]

Snip

True. We will have to hope that they get the balance within the sub-classifications done well. But, that's part of the reason they are doing it this way. It's much easier to balance 2 classes against each other than it is to balance 3 or 4 against each other. So they should be able to get both the MTs and both the OTs to be more or less equally useful.

Only when they homogenize everything about classes.

That's what we mean when we talk about homogenization. Two classes having a few skills that do the same thing mechanically =/= homogeneous. It's when the classes have the SAME skills but with different skins, names and animations (mechanically they work the same). That is the only way to achieve true equality between classes.

Some homogenization is fine. As I said in my last post, I SUPPORT tanks all having more or less the same abilities until level 20-30. They should get their "tank kit" in those levels. But after 20-30, the skills should NOT be homogeneous.

But really, my point is and has always been that all 4 tanks will be able to MT or OT 99.9% of the content in the game. Therefore, whether or not 2 tanks are better suited for MT and 2 for OT doesn't matter in the least. Adding a fourth tank simply gives us more options.

For that 0.1% of content where it matters, splitting them into "MT and OT -suited" makes balancing them SUPREMELY easier than trying to balance 4 to be equal. And also remember that they are simply making them more suited for MT/OT, not making them only capable of MT/OT.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

It depends now how less suited is "less suited". For example, right now it just feels REALLY bad to pull as a PLD. Even if I don't want to optimize. i.e. 24 mans if I'm stuck in an instance with 2 other PLDs or just tanks that don't want to tank (afraid or don't know or w/e), it just feels bad to press that ShO. Lob is never enough on its own and switching to Sword Oath is terrible.

It also felt bad when my co-tank wants to play PLD and I'm DRK for weeklies.. My group didn't have a source of slashing which forced my hand to either play WAR or just take the 10% DPS loss on BOTH tanks. Were we unable to clear? No we were. But it just felt really bad even if it was just a casual weekly.

So PLD isn't "less suited" to MT.. It just can't pull efficiently while the other two tanks can. The simplest way to balance a game is to bring down/up the outliers. PLD is the outlier when it comes to pulling. WAR was the outlier when it came to DPS and mitigation in HW. DRK is the outlier when it came to group support. Etc.

These are the big issues to fix with tanks. Not shoehorning/pigeonholing/shoving the role into even more subdivision.

My concern with this whole 2 MT, 2 OT deal is what it might entail. I really don't care about the whole who gets to pull the bess. If PLD is better to MT a certain fight they can always "ride" a WAR/DRK's enmity after the opener with a simple voke-shirk even if their "snap enmity" is utter shite. We have done that for Halicarnassus and Guardian because WAR was better for picking up the adds, hence my worries. As a matter of fact, HW's non-WAR always did that, ride the WAR's enmity after the opener and it wasn't a deal breaker. What was the deal breaker is it made WAR mandatory... But it was already mandatory because of its DPS-lossless Slashing application and universal damage reduction in Storm's Path.

If we wanna talk balance in general, 100% uptime resist down debuffs don't make sense. SE went out of their way to remove permanent damage reduction debuffs (such as Storm's Path, Halone, Delirium/Dragon Kick). They should do the same with resist downs.

Someone also mentioned something about Shield Healer vs Regen Healer being an issue, it isn't. The issue with healers right now is what they bring. The metrics SE decided to assign what the healers excel at is the problem, namely WHM having near-infinite MP and extremely high healing throughput. Since healers don't care about HPS and are minimizing it for the sake of DPS and SCH and AST having better tools to help with that (shielding and/or reducing inc.dmg), WHM is left out. Kind of how PLD was bad in HW because the metric it excelled at was group support via Veil and Cover and "defensiveness" that didn't matter in fights that had magic damage dominating them.

[Lyth]

Homogenisation
The problem isn't homogenisation in the strictest sense. If two skills are effectively identical (like Rampart and Shadowskin in Heavensward), they're balanced by definition. The problem happens when things are 'kind of' homogenised. If you look at the "30%" damage reduction cooldowns as an example:

Sentinel: 40% DR/180s recast/10s duration
Vengeance: 30% DR/120s recast/15s duration/counterattack on taking damage
Shadow Wall: 30% DR/120s recast/10s duration

After the change, you can say that Shadow Wall is 'kind of' like Vengeance. They're 'sort of' homogenised. You can argue that the differences are small. But anyone can also see that even after the change, Shadow Wall is still flat out weaker.

The difference with Sentinel is a bit more interesting, however. Experience teaches us that in most situations, a shorter recast is the most powerful feature of a defensive cooldown. But how does that extra 10% DR factor in? If it saves you having to use a second cooldown, then it suddenly becomes the stronger skill. And what if we factored out the recast? For example, what if we were comparing the following:

Sentinel: 40% DR/120s recast/5s duration
Vengeance: 30% DR/120s recast/15s duration

It becomes much harder to decide how these two actions trade off. In a way, you're comparing apples to oranges. You either homogenise a skill type, or you don't. Half measures are what create imbalances.

DRK's position as the "third tank" means that when you homogenise, it always ends up picking the path of being less WAR than WAR, and less PLD than PLD. Instead of having an apple, or an orange, you have an insipid fruit punch. Adding GUN as a second "middle tank" isn't going to produce a change.

Essential Functions
There are actually very few actions that are truly "essential" on a tank. You need to manage enmity, mitigate personal damage, and position mobs. Ask yourself: if you remove an action type from all tanks across the board, could you still tank?

Raidwide mitigation is not an essential tanking function. If I took away Reprisal, Shake it off, Divine Veil, and Passage of Arms, could you still tank? Absolutely. Would it be less fun? Probably. But they're not essential. You can say the same for mobility and knockback prevention, self-healing, and so on.

That's not to say that these "optional" abilities don't affect balance. They very much do, which is why when one tank gets one of these new toys, everyone else starts clamouring for their own copy. But you can often overlook a weakness in one area if you have a strength in another.

I think compartmentalising the tanks does this, to an extent. As an example, what if your "MTs" had knockback prevention skills but not mobility skills, while your "OTs" had little in the way of knockback prevention, but really good mobility? What if OTs brought stronger raid mitigation, but MTs had better self-sustain?

The one caveat to all this, of course, is damage. Damage generally trumps everything else. There are two solutions to this. The first is to continue the present trend of widening the damage gap between DPS and tanks/healers. The second is to balance out burst vs. sustained dps, such that burst always does sufficiently less damage on a target dummy. And tanks should stay away from damage buffs.

Speaking of damage buffs, I'm a bit worried, given that the new jobs have been described as using "slashing" damage, that we're still not going to see an end to the 100% uptime buffs. If not, wonder how this will factor into these tank subclassifications as well.

[whiskeybravo]

Some homogenization is fine. As I said in my last post, I SUPPORT tanks all having more or less the same abilities until level 20-30. They should get their "tank kit" in those levels. But after 20-30, the skills should NOT be homogeneous.

Even still, this is an arbitrary line. Invulns and high strength CDs aren't usually required at low levels.

The main divide in thinking seems to be centered around making tanks play more dynamically. Which is fine in and of itself, but it's something that needs to be scrutinized. Like, if I want the complexity of a DPS job, then I'll play a DPS job. I can only speak for myself I guess, but the tanking kit itself was never what interested me about tanking (compared to say, MCH, which I do enjoy playing, but chose to work on MCH over SAM because MCH has a more valuable support kit). I play WAR because it's been my main tank since ARR, I didn't jump on the WAR-is-OP bandwagon, I played the raw mitigation-less WAR all the way back in first coil. It's just my tank. The fact that it's had the same 3 combos the whole time is great IMO, because it allows me to focus on the encounter itself instead of tunnel visioning my hotbars.

While I do agree there is room for improvement, I don't agree that we need to make tank jobs as complex as dps jobs because the tank role itself is responsible for things that DPS aren't. It's OK for a DPS to tunnel vision on their rotation, not so much for a tank or healer. I don't think a few people who'd "tank more often if it were more interesting" should be the metric by which to change the whole system, as these desires are fleeting and easily exchanged for the next greatest thing.

I think compartmentalising the tanks does this, to an extent. As an example, what if your "MTs" had knockback prevention skills but not mobility skills, while your "OTs" had little in the way of knockback prevention, but really good mobility? What if OTs brought stronger raid mitigation, but MTs had better self-sustain?

I think knockback preventions should be looked at. Every job has something to deal with them except BRD/MCH, which is kind of unfair. But if you gave every job a knockback resist (or gap closer) then really what's the point of knockbacks? So I'd rather see them either get rid of knockbacks or get rid of the remedies. This also somewhat ties into why PLD is the best 2nd tank.

The problem with MT/OT split is that we have to arbitrarily draw a line in the sand that can't be crossed. Or can it be? And that's why the situation is clear as mud. You can't make them so different that an OT becomes unable to be a MT if required. But if they are too much the same then they aren't really separate.. I don't see how anything get's resolved by splitting them up, you just create arbitrary and unnecessary hurdles for players to jump over.

[Kalise]

I think compartmentalising the tanks does this, to an extent. As an example, what if your "MTs" had knockback prevention skills but not mobility skills, while your "OTs" had little in the way of knockback prevention, but really good mobility? What if OTs brought stronger raid mitigation, but MTs had better self-sustain?

Then no-one would care about your "MTs".

Mobility is knockback prevention (By the nature of allowing you to instantly get back onto the target after a knockback. In some scenarios before the knockback has gone its full length). While Mobility has additional usage in re-positioning during fights.

In addition, no-one cares about self-sustain. That's what healers are for. Raid mitigation is more potent as it can generate more LB gauge and thus more DPS. Or alternatively, it can allow you to cheese some tank swaps by funnelling more mitigation CD's onto the active tank.

While I do agree there is room for improvement, I don't agree that we need to make tank jobs as complex as dps jobs because the tank role itself is responsible for things that DPS aren't. It's OK for a DPS to tunnel vision on their rotation, not so much for a tank or healer. I don't think a few people who'd "tank more often if it were more interesting" should be the metric by which to change the whole system, as these desires are fleeting and easily exchanged for the next greatest thing.

I disagree. Simplifying Tanks rotation has been a cancer within MMO's for years.

Tanking in of itself, is not some sort of massively taxing ultra-complex thing that people with Tankxiety seem to think it is.

Tanking is merely... Standing in front of the boss, not standing in poop and watching its casts for popping CD's to mitigate. Occasionally, the boss repositions and you have to think "Okay, lets face boss away from group"

Meanwhile, DPS... Have to stand behind the boss (mDPS sometimes have to shift to the flank to get positional bonuses on certain skills), not stand in poop and watching its casts for popping CD's to go ham without interruption. Occasionally, adds spawn and you swap to them.

You might argue that things such as watching enmity for circle shirking can be complex... But then again, you have DPS that watch out for things like using Mana Shift, using their detaunts effectively (Especially enmity cutters like Lucid and Tactician/Refresh), looking out for skills where they can use Palisade/Apoc/Disarm to help mitigate damage.

So it's not like DPS get a free ride to stare at their action bars while Tanks/Healers have to play as if they have ADHD and keep looking at 10000000 things on screen at all times.

Meanwhile, boring tanking rotations are an issue. If tanks aren't fun to play, then people will turn away from playing them. With the worst being that Tank mains... Find another game to play instead. (It's what happened to make me leave ESO. Tanking in that game just plain wasn't fun due to how aggro mechanics worked meaning you literally had to keep 1 of literally 2 taunt skills in the entire game active on enemies at all times, which also meant that you needed to have exactly 1 of 2 skill sets available thus defeating the entire purpose of the games unique combat system and weapon swapping)

Like, you don't need to make Tanks kits ultra-complex. Especially not in their base functionality for newbies that are learning the role. But some level of progression beyond shifting from your 123 enmity combo to a 123 DPS combo as "Mastery" of the role should be agiven...

[shao32]

None of us can ensure the MT/OT stuff (independing of what we understand with that) and the all tanks should be balanced with everybody will work ever, i anticipate it will never work no matter what path they choose, but we have to see this as a Dev perspective, soon we are going to have 17 jobs that they should care to keep balanced all of then not only for SHB but the future expansions and the new jobs are going to come, thats a lot of work, and the all tanks being balanced with everybody means much more work, resources, time and testing to make and implement balance ajustments while the other option will give then more flexibility to identify problems and ajust jobs since there will be less factors involving a part of the tanks kits, this can be a good way to aliviate Devs job in SHB.

Opting for heavy homogenisation it's a boring and poor way to do things, specially since its basically makes everybody go to WAR standars bcs reasons instead of creating diversity.

[whiskeybravo]

Tanking in of itself, is not some sort of massively taxing ultra-complex thing that people with Tankxiety seem to think it is.

That was kind of my point. We play tanks for every reason other than their complexity. It's OK for DPS to have complex rotation because that's their only job, to deal damage. Tanking is not just dealing damage, Healing is not just healing lost HP, and this is precisely why their respective kits are more simple.

[Kabooa]

That was kind of my point. We play tanks for every reason other than their complexity. It's OK for DPS to have complex rotation because that's their only job, to deal damage. Tanking is not just dealing damage, Healing is not just healing lost HP, and this is precisely why their respective kits are more simple.

DPS is not just dealing damage, as Kalise stated. Mechanically speaking, the jobs get a pretty even split in what the encounter demands on them. In terms of party play, it isn't tanks managing resources, and arguably isn't even tanks managing threat at this point.

In other trinity games, the tank exclusive responsibility list looks something like

Mitigation
Threat
Positioning
Interception
Focus Targeting
Vulnerability Application

In Final Fantasy it's

Interception

Everything else is shared by every party member except Positioning, which the Boss has increasingly been doing itself.

It's no wonder Tanks echo the statement "There's nothing else to do but optimize damage", and frankly, optimizing damage on a tank isn't all that interesting because there's so few moving levers.