SHB itself is fantastic, but I'm not at all convinced on many of the combat changes

[Tranquilmelody7]

Congrats SE.
I think you did a fantastic job with this expansion, as even someone as cynical and jaded as myself has found the latest expansion exciting to play.

I would personally like to commend the additions and adjustments to The Hunt, my favorite aspect of the game.
I would still like to see a level sync implemented for all S ranks but that is a topic for another day.

However, in spite of my enjoyment of the game, some of the combat changes are really making me feel sour.

I feel that tanks and healers were homogenized and simplified in the pursuit of balance and accessibility, and I feel some efforts to that degree were taken too far.

Tanks seem to have lost a lot of identity in regards to skills(E.G. Shield Swipe and Power Slash) and traits(E.G. War's HP, DRK's haste) and while they still exhibit play style differences, they feel a lot more similar to play than I remember in Storm blood.

Additionally, DRK seems to suffer in the balance department.
DRK has lost a lot of it's speed, and MP generation is still a issue that the other tanks don't have.

To be Frank, I also feel the current state of Dark Missionary, Dark Mind and Living Dead are flat out unacceptable.
I don't mind the former two damage migitations being limited to magic only(I'd prefer it honestly in leu of job identity), but they need to have at least some advantage to the other similar cool downs for tanks.
As it is now, DRK is physically weak, and not magically strong.

As for Living dead, I feel a move that out flat out kills you if it's non self-sustainable requirements aren't fulfilled doesn't suit this game, period.

I don't play Healers, but Ilam emphatic to all the complaints I have been hearing.
Designing harder encounters to greater emphasize healing is nice, but I don't feel pruning a lot of DPS options is healthy for the game.

Thoughts fellow eorzeans?
Please discuss.

[CarnivalNights]

To be honest, I think we just have to wait and see how this all turns out once we get more content.

I don't think one raid and two primals will tell us everything we need to know yet. Every meta has taken its time to be found out, this one should be the same, maybe a little longer even.

[Reimmi]

Yeah when i was setting up my tanks i was shocked that they all pretty much had identical keybinds, and the exact same defensives

they homogenized the tanks way too much i think

[Seraphor]

I'm with you on Living Dead. This has always been an issue, but it seems even harder for a mon WHM to be able to meet the healing requirements.

On AST for example, the aspected spells upfront healing has been pretty much halved, and if Essentially Dignity and Synastry are on cooldown... good luck.

[Edax]

I do like that they've trimmed a lot of abilities away, I just did not like that I had to keep a 3rd hotbar that I exclusively used mouse clicks for. For DRK, I was spamming the Souleater combo most of the time, so it was a little bizarre that I had so many abilities on my hotbars. They could have even trimmed even more abilities in my opinion, I mean take Shadow Wall for instance, great damage mitigation, but it's purpose is nearly identical to Rampart. So might as well just roll both abilities into one spell and give the ability 2 charges, like True North has.

[Zeonx]

My cousin said the same thing he said the tanks are squishy now, why even have a shield if the shield doesn't block.

Paladin takes massive damage in old 69 dungeon 1 hit almost K.O if paladin didn't have heal it would be in trouble.

I don't think its just paladin but all tanks.

[Sovasin]

One raid and two primals is already 1/3 of the expansion pack. Surely you can't expect us to "wait and see" that long.

[Nedkel]

Can someone please explain to me whats up with this "homogenisation" of tanks which i cant really get a grip on?

How they are homogenised and how it is any different from what we had in Stormblood? Because for me it all looks like a complaining for a sake of complaining.
How did DRK lost in balance department if its the second highest (after broken PLD that will be nerfed sooner or later) DPS tank right now?
Also OP is not liking the magic only deffensive cooldown, and asks to buff it in order to put it on pair with other deffensives, isnt it what is called homogenisation? Why would he want DRK to have same stuff as other tanks? Quite the irony.
I fail to realise how power slash was any part of DRK identity, it was almost never used by this job.
Someone need to make a list for each tank of abilities from 5.0 and the previous patch and compare and then play all of them to lvl 80 in order to make such brave statements of all tanks playing the same.
War still rely on heavy damage IR windows, he could heal himself and other with nascent flash he didnt had this before, also he has a exclusive to him and additional infuriate mechanic in which he has 2 charges to use for highest damage skills, he exceeds in the personal deffensivess.
PLD got highest damage from all tanks, a really deadly magic damage combo and cool gauge based burst damage, still has his upper hand in supportive abilities in comparison to rest of tanks.
DRK plays totaly different from the rest by managing 2 resources, with 2 damage dealing windows and strong "dot" damage, his shield is a tank buster eating wall which none of tanks has.
If anything SE did, it was packing more iconic skills into these jobs in place of skills that were just weak and didnt had any large impact on these jobs gemplay (sole survive, shield swipe, old delirium, enmity combo, unchained etc).

[DynnDiablos]

I am loving the changes to MCH. Since it's my main, for once, I feel the rotation makes sense and I am dealing powerhouse amounts of damage. Reassemble + Drill for the win! BOOM baby!

[CarnivalNights]

One raid and two primals is already 1/3 of the expansion pack. Surely you can't expect us to "wait and see" that long.

Well, do you know how to test, pick and prune data that's relevant to finding out what's optimal, what's worthless and etc because you would be a big help in finding that out because all I see anywhere I look is personal anecdote and no data.