Have Tanks been dumbed down to much?

[EpicOverlord85]

Tank changes this expansion:

- You don't have to press an aggro combo(that took up hotbar space) once per fight/add spawn and you and your party members have more hotbar space and skill slots to be used on far more interesting skills than maintenance skills like Diversion and Invigorate.
- Newer tanks won't be intimidated by aggro ""management"" due to gear and inexperience, improving tank accessibility.

- Each tank now has a quick reaction CD in the form of RI/Sheltron/TBN/HoS for self buff and SiO/DV+Wings/DMis/HoL for raid buff on top of Reprisal rotations. Every tank also has supplementary TBN/NF/HoS+Aurora/Cover+Intervention+Clemency for co-tank/party member support.

- PLD and WAR rotations have been expanded, GNB has been added and DRK has been revised.
> DRK has never been more flexible and has the most interesting gains with raid buffs and control of its damage output. 10% more CPM from spamming Dark arts 3 more times than Edge and pressing 1-2-3 faster from BW haste is anything but complex or interesting. GCD manipulation from TBN Blood was the extent of SB DRK complexity.
> GNB is no more "big brain" than DRK because they have to press 4-5-6 every 30 seconds and press their resource free and hardfixed Continuation 2 more times than Edge per minute.

Tank damage and mitigation has been balanced across the board. Tank damage at most percentiles is a 3% difference from the top(GNB) to the bottom(DRK). 3%.
No single tank has claim over DPS as their "identity" whilst also being ironically the most effectively durable tank. They all fill the basic requirements to clear content equally and can comfortably compete with eachother in damage with the deciding factor being more the player's personal skill than the class they play.

They all have access to a similar suite of mitigation options (PLD being a minor outlier) options with slight tinges of flavour in DM, Thrill, TBN and Cover/Passive Block.

All actual tank relevant metrics and meaningful contributions like mitigation, positioning and damage are still present and have been expanded upon.
Aggro has been effectively streamlined because it is a pointless and shallow mechanic with no real gains from excelling in.

So... no. Tanks have not been "dumbed down". Not actual tank worthwhile tank mechanics and metrics. If you think tanks are more "Blue DPS" than before, then you clearly have not played this game in any prior expansion.

Bonus graph for tank damage differences to further illustrate the great state of balance:

I would argue that Dark Knight is even more rigid than it ever was in the past. One combo, basically no CDs past TBN (which is the one skill I still really like), and that’s about it. Also as far as the raid buffs go we gained once skill, Dark Missionary, for a 10% party wide magic damage reduction buff, but once again that’s about it.

[FallenWings]

I would argue that Dark Knight is even more rigid than it ever was in the past. One combo, basically no CDs past TBN (which is the one skill I still really like), and that’s about it. Also as far as the raid buffs go we gained once skill, Dark Missionary, for a 10% party wide magic damage reduction buff, but once again that’s about it.

With how we can place 2000 ogcd Potency anywhere every minute. We are actually the most flexible by far. Having gains from raid buffs equivalent to even DPS classes. DRK at max optimization shoots up from bottom tank dps to second just because of our flexibility.
GCD is only half of the equation and current DRK is no more rigid than old DRK. You still pressed 1-2-3 in SB. You pressed 1-2-4 sometimes and 5 every 30 seconds(Bloodspiller replaced Scourge in terms of usage and being more frequent and flexible than Scourge).

DRK now controls their mana and makes it their b****. Choosing when to blast it all instead of having to constantly mash Dark arts just so it doesn't overfill. Running out is more threatening if it cuts out a TBN because regen is more slower but predictable. Some may have liked the "sustain" dps DRK of old. But current controlled burst DRK has far more interplay with their party than any past iteration of DRK. Being thoughtful with your oGCDs and mana usage can see big potency gains instead of idly mashing buttons as they light up.

SE has made it so just mashing buttons on DRK is fine for basic performance(filling their goal of shortening the skill gap), but if you wanted to push DRK; you can be aware of your party and work in harmonic unison to go above and beyond. Playing with a nin as DRK is like night and day.

Every tank now has one instead of just DRK having 0.

[Machi_Machiavelli]

What does too homogenised even means?

When you have a job of that role you need to be able to do the mechanics so you'll need similar toolkits. I just don't see how a tank would work without defensive cooldowns, ways to get enmity on a group of mobs, ways to get on top of aggro for swaps, ways to get enmity from a distance, etc..

So, what would even look balanced-and-non-homogenised tanks?

Blink tanking

[EpicOverlord85]

With how we can place 2000 ogcd Potency anywhere every minute. We are actually the most flexible by far. Having gains from raid buffs equivalent to even DPS classes. DRK at max optimization shoots up from bottom tank dps to second just because of our flexibility.
GCD is only half of the equation and current DRK is no more rigid than old DRK. You still pressed 1-2-3 in SB. You pressed 1-2-4 sometimes and 5 every 30 seconds(Bloodspiller replaced Scourge in terms of usage and being more frequent and flexible than Scourge).

DRK now controls their mana and makes it their b****. Choosing when to blast it all instead of having to constantly mash Dark arts just so it doesn't overfill. Running out is more threatening if it cuts out a TBN because regen is more slower but predictable. Some may have liked the "sustain" dps DRK of old. But current controlled burst DRK has far more interplay with their party than any past iteration of DRK. Being thoughtful with your oGCDs and mana usage can see big potency gains instead of idly mashing buttons as they light up.

SE has made it so just mashing buttons on DRK is fine for basic performance(filling their goal of shortening the skill gap), but if you wanted to push DRK; you can be aware of your party and work in harmonic unison to go above and beyond. Playing with a nin as DRK is like night and day.

Every tank now has one instead of just DRK having 0.

You keep mentioning having to be careful with your mana as a DRK, but idk if I can agree with that. As long as you hover at about 6,000 MP constantly you can keep dumping resources into Edge/Flood without much of a worry with easily enough MP to keep up TBN. Hell the only times I can think of where I’ve run out of MP on ShB DRK is when I start getting tunnel vision after hitting 1-2-3 and sometimes 4 and then sometimes 5 (or 5 over and over again for 10 seconds every 80 seconds). My point is this; with basic attentiveness you will never run out of MP because it is so easy to manage now.

Also yes I’m aware we were hitting 1-2-3 back in SB, but that doesn’t change the fact that instead of giving us something more interesting SE decided to double down on it while also making us a poor mans Warrior. I don’t hate the new DRK, but I adamantly believe we’ve lost a lot of what used to make us unique and function far too much like another job. It wouldn’t be so bad if PLD and GNB had done the same, but they didn’t. Why must DRK be a copy of Warrior when the other two get to be unique?

[Maneesha]

Tank changes this expansion:

- You don't have to press an aggro combo(that took up hotbar space) once per fight/add spawn and you and your party members have more hotbar space and skill slots to be used on far more interesting skills than maintenance skills like Diversion and Invigorate.

Aggro has been effectively streamlined because it is a pointless and shallow mechanic with no real gains from excelling in.

So... no. Tanks have not been "dumbed down". Not actual tank worthwhile tank mechanics and metrics. If you think tanks are more "Blue DPS" than before, then you clearly have not played this game in any prior expansion.

One aggro combo is the product of the interaction of those "maintenance" skills + the mandatory ninja (shadow walker/ smoke screen) and shirk.
So you mean this synergy and interaction between those skills is less complex then pressing "enmity stance"? So much for not being dumbed down. Take those things away and try it with 1 aggro combo (pre-sb state,more or less), we all know the outcome.
See even before we had all those tools to deal with enmity and tank swaps, we tried to minimize the use of aggro combos and tank stances, then SE decidet to " lift up " the less skilled players (kinda their words pre sb) and gave us those tools. The more "skilled" players didn't really need those tools, but if we could get even more personal and of course raid dps, sure we would utilize them. It was then that enmity became so easy to deal with. Thanks to the over-trivialization of tank-stances by the community, everyone speaking of the pointlessness of tank-stances,like if they all could archive the same level of low uptime like the most skilled players(which is a group effort), the same level of low gcd usage for healers and so on, that we now don't have offensive stances, but a simple "i want enmity" toggle skill.
So lets not over trivialize things.

Ps: "streamline" is/can be another word for "dumbing down".

Even in sb the tanks were very close in dps, i am happy that the devs could maintain the balance in such state.

[Rhysati]

There are so many people in this thread that are so quick to want to defend their beloved current style that they aren't thinking about what the OP is actually saying.

Tanking HAS been dumbed down. Massively. Currently if you have your tank stance turned on, you can roll your face across the keyboard and hold aggro. As a 80 DRK in any dungeon I can spam Salted Earth -> Bloodspiller and hold aggro on all the mobs without any worry of resource or threat management. I can then throw in random things like flood of shadow, abyssal drain, and Quietus. But outside of trying to maximize my damage output, there is nothing else to think about.

This is a huge mistake imo. It's the exact same mistake that companies have been making with healers. By removing resource management and tactical usage of abilities in favor of spamming everything you have whenever you like it is taking away the ability to learn, grow, and a reach a higher skill level. Sure, for new tanks/healers? It's never been more accessible. But what do you have to work towards? How do you get better? How do you push yourself to feel like you are better at your job than others? Right now, you really can't outside of just trying to do the most DPS you can. And if that's going to be what separates your skill from someone else, why not just play a dps class?

It's this kind of dumbing down of tanking and healing that leads to more and more of the experienced people that love those roles stepping away from them and more and more of the braindead people spamming holy and not using cooldowns to come in. If that's what you want in your runs, then go for it. But it's really a shame the more the skill ceiling drops.

[EpicOverlord85]

There are so many people in this thread that are so quick to want to defend their beloved current style that they aren't thinking about what the OP is actually saying.

Tanking HAS been dumbed down. Massively. Currently if you have your tank stance turned on, you can roll your face across the keyboard and hold aggro. As a 80 DRK in any dungeon I can spam Salted Earth -> Bloodspiller and hold aggro on all the mobs without any worry of resource or threat management. I can then throw in random things like flood of shadow, abyssal drain, and Quietus. But outside of trying to maximize my damage output, there is nothing else to think about.

This is a huge mistake imo. It's the exact same mistake that companies have been making with healers. By removing resource management and tactical usage of abilities in favor of spamming everything you have whenever you like it is taking away the ability to learn, grow, and a reach a higher skill level. Sure, for new tanks/healers? It's never been more accessible. But what do you have to work towards? How do you get better? How do you push yourself to feel like you are better at your job than others? Right now, you really can't outside of just trying to do the most DPS you can. And if that's going to be what separates your skill from someone else, why not just play a dps class?

It's this kind of dumbing down of tanking and healing that leads to more and more of the experienced people that love those roles stepping away from them and more and more of the braindead people spamming holy and not using cooldowns to come in. If that's what you want in your runs, then go for it. But it's really a shame the more the skill ceiling drops.

It’s sadly the long-term tedium that a lot people are not thinking about.

[FallenWings]

You keep mentioning having to be careful with your mana as a DRK, but idk if I can agree with that. As long as you hover at about 6,000 MP constantly you can keep dumping resources into Edge/Flood without much of a worry with easily enough MP to keep up TBN. Hell the only times I can think of where I’ve run out of MP on ShB DRK is when I start getting tunnel vision after hitting 1-2-3 and sometimes 4 and then sometimes 5 (or 5 over and over again for 10 seconds every 80 seconds). My point is this; with basic attentiveness you will never run out of MP because it is so easy to manage now.

Also yes I’m aware we were hitting 1-2-3 back in SB, but that doesn’t change the fact that instead of giving us something more interesting SE decided to double down on it while also making us a poor mans Warrior. I don’t hate the new DRK, but I adamantly believe we’ve lost a lot of what used to make us unique and function far too much like another job. It wouldn’t be so bad if PLD and GNB had done the same, but they didn’t. Why must DRK be a copy of Warrior when the other two get to be unique?

I've already explained that the complexity and mana management of DRK is when you push it beyond pushing buttons as they light up aka pooling for buff windows. If you mindlessly press it any time then you won't see as much gains and hovering off 6k is fine and dandy if you don't expect to push your class any further.

Mana management in SB was quite literally, mash as fast as possible, and as often as possible without any particular consideration because your mana coming in was ludicrous. You were not in any real danger from losing TBN because of said mana input.

Again, GCD is only half of DRK's kit. Especially DRK of all tank classes. The emphasis has and still is on it's ogcds and how it utilizes it with or without the GCD skills. GNB is quite literally 1-2-3 as well and so is WAR and PLD. They vary their GCDs in favour of having less oGCDs or resource managment. DRK takes the focus away from GCDs onto it's mp bar, blood bar and oGCD abilities.

DRK is as similiar to WAR as PLD is similiar to GNB. If you choose to only focus on one aspect of DRK then obviously you would assume it is a discount "WAR" (p.s DRK isn't just Delirium). DRK is anything but a "poor man's" WAR with having actual more complexity and also more flexibility than not only WAR, but all 4 tanks.

The unique aspects of DRK being it's ogcds and resource aspect is very much still present. Haste is gone but the depth of haste is inconsequential and pressing 3.0 Delirium every other combo is anything but an identity.

One aggro combo is the product of the interaction of those "maintenance" skills + the mandatory ninja (shadow walker/ smoke screen) and shirk.
So you mean this synergy and interaction between those skills is less complex then pressing "enmity stance"? So much for not being dumbed down. Take those things away and try it with 1 aggro combo (pre-sb state,more or less), we all know the outcome.
See even before we had all those tools to deal with enmity and tank swaps, we tried to minimize the use of aggro combos and tank stances, then SE decidet to " lift up " the less skilled players (kinda their words pre sb) and gave us those tools. The more "skilled" players didn't really need those tools, but if we could get even more personal and of course raid dps, sure we would utilize them. It was then that enmity became so easy to deal with. Thanks to the over-trivialization of tank-stances by the community, everyone speaking of the pointlessness of tank-stances,like if they all could archive the same level of low uptime like the most skilled players(which is a group effort), the same level of low gcd usage for healers and so on, that we now don't have offensive stances, but a simple "i want enmity" toggle skill.
So lets not over trivialize things.

Ps: "streamline" is/can be another word for "dumbing down".

Even in sb the tanks were very close in dps, i am happy that the devs could maintain the balance in such state.

Using dumbing down instead of streamline implies something bad happened.

Aggro before was as deep as it is now. But now we don't have to clunk tank buttons and gameplay with a pointless metric.

[Lyth]

Enmity generation over time has never mattered in this game. Only snap enmity matters. The only thing that's changed is that we've replaced two actions that only get used once or twice per fight, at most.

[ashwich]

I only played DRK here and there in SB because my raid group needed me on DPS. But I'd like to say I'm familiar enough with the job. I'll likely be tank main comes next week and have been playing DRK in ShB. The DRK kit seems simple on paper, there're a lot of optimizations to be had however. A few examples are your cd usage, do you have the sks to not miss a gcd in the delirium / blood weapon window? If not, are you hitting these cooldowns during the end half of oGCD to ensure you get a 5th GCD in? Did you pool enough resources for living shadow the moment it comes off cd? Are you lining that up with your DNC's technical step without falling behind overtime?

Back up one step and say you're the best DRK in NA and manages your damage uptime / cds perfectly. How have you been managing your TBN usage? in the current 2 EX primals, you can squeeze in TBN as long as you take at least 3 AAs in non raid-damage / tank buster situation. It's a tremendous QoL improvement for your healers, they can in turn optimize their damage as well. It's taken me at least a whole bunch of Titania runs to finally be able get 16 damage-neutral TBNs in, up from like 3 in my first clear and I'm not even close to where I want to be on damage on top of that.

Let's just say I wouldn't complain about having a "dumbed down" 1 combo.